Have to heartily disagree with that comment. I've worked a couple of different IT positions in healthcare, and the main reason doctors "hate computers" is they tend to be heavily resistant to any sort of change, and the nature of software is change. Years ago I had a gig upgrading computers in a hospitals and the doctors were by far the most hostile towards mandatory upgrades (compared to nurses and receptionists, who were generally eager to get a new computer). God forbid their desktop icons were rearranged, or something didn't work exactly like it did. Most EMRs (software for maintaining electronic records) still have a Win 3.x look and feel, you can't make any changes to the software they use without risking major conflict with your BAs and the doctors they have to deal with.
I can only speculate as to why doctors are particularly against any sort of progress change, or as to why they are absolutely set in their ways. Perhaps any sort of short term loss in efficiency / patient care is unacceptable - like some sort of variant of the Trolley Problem where "pulling a level" hurts patients in the short term? Because their existing systems are working, they don't want to take any sort of risk that may reduce their down time?
Software updates would be another concern to account for too. If you're buying a generator, a weed trimmer or toaster - they'll come with a manual, because the functionality isn't going to change for that device or equipment, ever. How an Android phone or laptop works is almost entirely dependent on the software or operating system being used, and those are constantly changing with updates. Slightly different icons or a minor rearrangement is enough to confuse users, and now all the printed manuals are useless or misleading.
I used to think that too when I was younger; "I'd sure live forever if I could!". Or even 500 years or something if the technology was possible. But after reading several sci-fi books on the topic of immortality (and watched few episodes of black mirror), I think I've changed my outlook - death doesn't seem so bad. Sure it would be nice to be immortal and safely observe the earth for a while (maybe?), but if you're immortal, you have to think that opens up the possibility to live some sort of hellish existence in some sort of purgatory or torture. Regardless of how you achieve that immortality (upgraded flesh body, consciousness transfer to machine), there's some possibility you'll be in some state worse than death. Perhaps your consciousness is in some empty space simulation, or you're in some rich guy / alien private museum for hundreds of thousands of years.
The animated film Ninja Scroll comes to mind - near the end of the film, there's an immortal antagonist fighting the protagonist on a ship full of gold. The gold turns to molten (from a fire), covers the antagonist who sinks to the bottom of the ocean encased in gold (presumably, spending the rest of eternity blind, deaf, mute and immobile). Maybe you're better off being dead in that case!
Oh, it would be *SOOO* much better to have a system like the US where only the wealthy can afford healthcare, even if they happen to be obese smokers that'll die a few years after getting the surgery anyway.
Man, what is with these horrible death panels in these socialist countries with single payer plans? When there's a limited amount of surgeries that can be performed on patients, they have the audacity to ensure the patients they choose are more likely to live longer, therefore making each surgery more worth the investment (as opposed to randomly selecting patients, first come first serve, or not letting poor people get surgery). What kind of sick system is this!??!?
I'm not trying to downplay the importance of taxonomy in biology, but this is a really incredulous scenario in the first few paragraphs of this article. Was this the best "real-life" scenario the author could come up with where taxonomy somehow results in a potential life-or-death situation?
Before you go rushing to the hospital in search of antivenin, you’re going to want to look up exactly what kind of snake you’re dealing with. But the results are confusing. According to the official record of species names, governed by the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), the snake belongs to the genus Spracklandus. What you don’t know is that almost no taxonomists use that name. Instead, most researchers use the unofficial name that pops up in Wikipedia and most scientific journal articles: Afronaja....This might sound like semantics. But for you, it could mean the difference between life and death.
Seriously, who the hell would walk into a hospital and simply mention the genus of the snake that bit them? Someone mauled by a bear arriving at a hospital wouldn't say a member of the Ursus genus mauled me. Assuming they had enough time to wiki-search the snake while they're rushed to the hospital, they'd barge in with a picture of the snake that bit them and ask for an antidote. If for some reason, the bitten victim is in some sort of delirious Hodor-like state and is unable to communicate any words other than "Spracklandus, Spracklandus , Spracklandus !!", then we'd also have to assume the doctor is unable to research this and gets the wrong snake. And then we'd have to assume that the confirmed snake that bit the patient is visually close enough for the confirmation to be technically the wrong snake, but somehow the anti-venom that's administered is too different to be effective from the actual snake, and the patient dies. And then if this did happen, it would happen once as a freak accident, and policy would change to avoid this scenario from happening in the future.
There's so many levels of unbelievably stupid with this possible scenario. If this is the best worst scenario they can come up with to reassure the readers of the importance of taxonomy - well this leads me to believe it's far less important than I originally assumed.
Any sort of condemnation of a tech company by a U.S. Intelligence agency should be easily spun into a positive selling feature for said company. If the CIA / NSA / 3 letter agency is publicly denouncing your organization, then it's almost certain that they're unable to install their backdoors / rootkit / keyloggers on whatever that company has to sell.
I'm not too convinced this will be useful, especially for casual facebook users. that are actually safe during a crisis but fail to mark themselves as "safe" with this feature. Say there is a crisis in your location, and you're using this to see who's OK in your friend list. 75/100 friends are safe. Phew. What about the other 25? Or even if it's only 8/10 that you really care about. Are they dead because they didn't check in? Or maybe they just forgot their phone that day. As this feature becomes more ubiquitous on facebook, it will increase the worry factor for those not on facebook enough to use it via "false negatives".
The point the GP was making wasn't the point that "if something can be used for EVIL, so we should hold the manufacturer liable if it is". The point was that if you manufacture something with no good or legitimate purpose or if it's obvious the intent is *PURELY* for malice or criminal activities, then the creator should be held liable. This software wasn't something designed for white hats to find security vulnerabilities.
A considerable number of slashdot readers seem to have this weird quasi-libertarian notion that creating something with the intention of malice or subverting the law is just fine and dandy, and the creators should be absolved of responsibility - see The Pirate Bay and Silk Road. "What??? I just created the dark net trading platform that's hidden to authorities!! It's not MYYYY fault if people use it for CP, assassination attempts and selling slaves... It's not like I did the actual crimes!". If your creation has 99% illegitimate uses or is used by 99% of the users for illegitimate & illegal purposes, then maybe you totally knew that when you created it and should be held responsible.
Reminds me of that Death Ray quote from futurama "Amy, technology isn't intrinsically good or evil. It's how it's used. Like the Death Ray.". But even the fucking death ray sounds like it has more legitimate uses than this malware (like potentially killing cancel cells, parasites, or warding off an invading force from Omicron Persei 8)
Hardly a "massive" social turbulence. The number of births where the expected father isn't the real father is somewhere in the neighborhood of 2% (Find your own sources). This wouldn't even be a blip on the radar.
Imagine if pornhub, xhamster, etc... decided to band together and block all access from Congress (or even all of Washington D.C) for 24 hours from accessing their sites. Bonus points if they add some sort of family-values message to their site ("We at [website] have taken the necessary steps to prevent our elected representatives from accessing the ungodly smut they claim is destroying this great nation. You're welcome").
The phrase "take it to the bank" - this is meant to emphasize something that is certain, or known for sure. But then this is followed by the phrase "phishing them for 3 million" right afterwards. So by using jargon that emphasizes certainty followed by a relatively new English language word (phishing) which technically means attempt (but maybe most readers directly associate this with scammed) - this heavily implies that Mattel was indeed fleeced, robbed, scammed, looted, pillaged, phished or whatever word you want to use.
And technically, they were phished/scammed. The voluntarily handed over the money - they just happened to catch on quickly enough and the money was returned to them. The money was in the other account by then. If someone comes to your door claiming to be a PC repair guy and you voluntarily give them your computer and they leave; guess what - you were scammed. It doesn't matter that you managed to catch on 2 minutes later and chase their vehicle down, or 2 days later to find your PC in the pawn shop - you were scammed.
The confusing issue here is that nothing in the title implies that the money was returned, and simply gives the first half of the story (Mattel phished) without indicating the money was returned successfully. But that's hardly the fault of the slashdot editor here, this title is taken verbatim from the CSO article. I hardly think it's the slashdot moderator's job to edit the summary for the titles for potential confusion.
Maybe the NSA could be convinced to do a special TV show appearance on Hoarders. Have some other agencies come together in an intervention to help 'em let go.
DOJ: So NSA... we've got some recorded phone calls here from August 3rd, 2003 between a Darlene [redacted] and her grandson [redacted]
NSA: Yes.. she's born in 1948, lives in Arlington, TX and her SSN is [redacted]. I remember when we first collected those calls.
DOJ: Well then, we listened to this a few times, and it sounds like some fairly innocuous conversation. Nothing criminal whatsoever.
NSA: Right
DHS: So... do you think we can delete these calls then? I mean, there's no..
NSA: NOOOOOO!! There could still be connections to terrorism in those calls... somehow! You never know what we might find on meta-data analysis
DEA: Look... we've identified all the phone references with mentions of drugs, and made copies of those for investigations. We never use the rest of those recordings, and I'm the only one here that really uses those at all. Maybe we could just.. y'know.. delete...
NSA: Don't touch that data! It's mine! I own it!
Help! Help! A giant social network monster is attacking me! It's asking me if I want to join, and it's eaten most of my friends! Ahhhhhh, not my metadata! Now it knows I like cats and anime! That could be used to *gasp* send me targeted ads one day!
At some point all that employment is going to plateau for the people creating all the shit for people (arguably now, or in the next 20 years). To use the GP's point, if a machine replaces 3 workers (that only requires 1 worker for machine maintenance), then that leaves 2 people unemployed. And your point is spot on here too; those 2 displaced workers will generally have to find work in another industry (services), as all the ex-farmers and ex-factory workers have had to do in the last 100 years or so.
But at some point, what we refer to as "jobs" now are diminishing. The numbers of human laborers needed for general manufacturing or farming is at an all time low and generally sufficient for the population in developed countries. Look at how much stuff we have already; the demand for more luxuries isn't going to increase (at least, not as much as it will displace workers. We'll probably see some increase in services, but this will eventually plateau too.
I guess the point I was trying to get at, was what's considered a "job" (at least the GPs definition) will be scarcer at some point in history, and there aren't going to be replacement jobs. There's only so many doctors, nurses, dentists, assistants, other service jobs necessary to keep the population comfortable and happy, while the lion's share of production and transportation will be done by robots. Maybe we'll see people keeping themselves busy with more volunteering, creating art or music, playing sports, or just playing video games & socializing. But those aren't "jobs" by today's definition (maybe for the 0.1% of artists and athletes that can actually make a living at it). So yeah, maybe if we have a basic income and everyone can live somewhat comfortably on that, then we can redefine what those "jobs" are (I'd love to do this and just play / create music, personally). But there won't be enough of those jobs out there by today's definition.
If you have any doubts to the validity of this statement, see video game releases over the last decade (Arkham Knight, Assassin's Creed Unity, etc..). Except now instead of just not being able to play a game, your primary method of transportation might be disabled now. Or maybe the likeliness of an accident has been increased substantially.
So, basically he set up a scenario where people taking the subway couldn't use their cell phones. Or as I like to call it, "When I used to take the subway a decade ago".
The horror of denying access to electronic communication in a location! Throw the book at him!
Aside from many of the privacy issues (already mentioned here by other) was that fact that you needed an invite in order to initially register for an account. When there was some buzz about google + I thought I'd check it out, but couldn't. This was there for at least 3 months and if you somehow got one, you were limited to sending out 15 invites! I don't think I know a single person on Facebook with less than 15 "friends".
That was the real suicide for G+ in my opinion. Most people generally don't give a crap about their privacy (at least non-tech types); that's why they're on Facebook in the first place; to tell the world what they're up to and see what they're up to. But if the entire point of a social networking site is to get you and your friends using it, then why the hell would you restrict that or limit that? Maybe google thought this would word because Facebook was initially college-exclusive. Or maybe because gmail was initially invite only; they didn't think much of it. But this was the far bigger nail in the coffin in my opinion. They needed to get as many people as possible to jump ship from Facebook (or at least try it out, or have accounts on both) in order to get it to work, but they put in an artificial scarcity on access. Surprise surprise; if you got an invite and did join, you found it was a ghost town after a month and went back to Facebook where all your friends are.
Personally, I like to call that time frame selection "Sportscaster statistics". If you're ever watching or listening to highlights or pre-game hype, you'll always hear the most convenient data sampling selection to fit the narrative of a winning or losing streak. "They've won 3 of their last 4!" means they won 3 of the last 5. "Dropped 7 of the last 9" almost certainly indicates they lost 7 of the last 10 games, or maybe 7 out of 11. For some reason, a team never seems to be just average, they're always on a hot or cold streak.
If that number isn't rounded to 5 or 10, or a multiple of 10 (for a fairly low sampling size greater than 10 but less than 100), you should be skeptical of the data and immediately assume the number was picked to fit a narrative.
How do you know it's GMOs causing it? You said yourself that when you switched to "organic, grass fed, no pesticides, no herbicides milk" - suddenly no problem. You've just lumped GMO into the same category as "organic" and assume the health results are a result of it being GMO.
You realize that it may just be the pesticides and not necessarily the GMO-ness of the food? You're aware that food can be *both* GMO and organic, right? Organic simply means that no pesticides or chemical fertilizers were used in the production.
- Genetically engineered airborne supervirus (think 12 Monkeys movie plot)
- Self replicating nano-bot swarm / grey goo
- Actual AI replacing humans
- Nukes
- New type of super-weapon (like a hydrogen bomb) that requires significantly less effect or difficult materials to create
This concept really isn't new; it's one of the ideas of why we haven't seen any evidence of life outside Earth (fermi paradox); that civilizations eventually destroy themselves via technology before they establish bases on other planets. Humans are certainly in that category right now; there's enough nukes out there in existence to do that. The point being made, is that scientific advancements will make it easier for a single individual to kill more other people (possibly wipe out the whole human race) than in any other point in history.
As long as we have a concept of individuality (meaning not a hive mind), there's a risk that some individuals will trigger the downfall of civilization as we know it, and kill all humans (fulfilling the wishes of Bender Rodriguez). This is especially true with the current social and political situations we have now. Whether it's a nutty eco-terrorist looking to wipe out all humans to return to a "natural" state, or a religious fanatic hoping to trigger the apocalypse, or just someone mentally ill - scientific progress will continue to increase the likeliness for a single individual (or a handful) to wipe out humanity. Pretty sure that was the point
Sadly, this is probably the only way the NSA is ever going to be dismantled - when the biggest supporters and cheerleaders from the NSA realize their own conversations are being recorded.
Hey NSA employees! Are you concerned about the overreach of the spying capabilities of your organization? Would you like to do something about it, but not face prison time like Manning, or live a live of exile like Snowden? Well here's your chance to start Operation Dirty Laundry! Find some juicy tidbits from important people out there and stick 'em on the interwebs! Perhaps some sort of exchange between Obama and his doctor, discussing his hemorrhoid problem. Or perhaps a nice conversation between Rubio and Mitch McConnel discussing what a sea cow Angela Merkel is. Maybe a conversation between Paul Ryan and his wife about how she caught one of their kids with pornography. Or how about a tech-heavy conversation between Hillary and one of her aides over her smart phone? Boy I'd love to hear that last one - is she truly tech-ignorant about her private server, or is she playing dumb? Either way, great!
But anyway, it's not time to play party favorites here - try to be equally fair here to both parties here. And don't post anything career-ending for them; just mildly embarrassing content that you wouldn't want your co-workers to know about. They can't take action if their careers are over. Ideally we want the most vocal congressmen and presidential candidates still in the running. Now get to it!
So, instead of having at least a chance of being home to answer the door with a human driver knocking / ringing the doorbell - the drone is going to drop off the package on my doorstep with no notice? Sure, I suppose you could integrate some app / notification system on a smartphone or something - but that's not going to help if I don't have a smartphone (or it's not around when the package is delivered).
Imagine for a minute that certain drinks with no added salt / sugar were forced to have a label (WARNING: Conatains electrolytes). Or perhaps some like (Contains Di-hydrogen monoxide). How many ignorant people would change their buying patterns based on that? What benefit would this provide for your average consumer?
That's the issue here. Today the anti-GMO argument is "Well, if there's nothing wrong with GMOs, then why don't you label them?" If labeling is enforced, then 10 years from now the anti-GMO movement will be saying "Oh yeah, well if there's nothing bad about GMOs, why are they forced to label them?"
Cab prices are high and fares are inflated because of artificial scarcity via taxi medallions. That's the real issue here. This is why you wait over an hour on a late weekend night, or 3+ hours on new year's eve for a taxi. Cab drivers either have to buy a medallion at a ridiculously inflated price (via a 2nd mortgage or something) OR they have to lease one out from $$richowner$$ who makes money by doing absolutely nothing (at the expense of every cab patron, who pays slightly more).
And look at who is profiting - DIng! It's the senior executives and investors of these parasitical companies.
. Oh, the irony in your post. I'm surprised you didn't mention the "parasitical senior executives of craigslist taking away jobs from pawn shop owners that can't support their families".
If you're going to criticize anything Uber does, it should be the blatant disregard for local regulations that put taxis at a disadvantage. Force them to adhere to the same standards that taxis have to do (passenger insurance, proper bookkeeping to ensure drivers pay income tax, sales tax if applicable on fares, etc..) Once they're all on the same playing field, then there's nothing legitimate for taxis to complain about.
And finally, your "race to the bottom of the wage barrel" doesn't really apply here. If prices drop and your average uber driver makes less, then the consumers and passengers benefit! If the level field is completely even and your average cab fare is much lower, then the cab drivers were making far more than they would have via normal supply and demand . The only losers are those that own the medallions (and the taxi drivers who provide shitty customer service; who are forced to clean up their cabs, play music that the customer wants to hear, and clear their cars more frequently. Boo hoo).
Slashdot Mirror
Have to heartily disagree with that comment. I've worked a couple of different IT positions in healthcare, and the main reason doctors "hate computers" is they tend to be heavily resistant to any sort of change, and the nature of software is change. Years ago I had a gig upgrading computers in a hospitals and the doctors were by far the most hostile towards mandatory upgrades (compared to nurses and receptionists, who were generally eager to get a new computer). God forbid their desktop icons were rearranged, or something didn't work exactly like it did. Most EMRs (software for maintaining electronic records) still have a Win 3.x look and feel, you can't make any changes to the software they use without risking major conflict with your BAs and the doctors they have to deal with.
I can only speculate as to why doctors are particularly against any sort of progress change, or as to why they are absolutely set in their ways. Perhaps any sort of short term loss in efficiency / patient care is unacceptable - like some sort of variant of the Trolley Problem where "pulling a level" hurts patients in the short term? Because their existing systems are working, they don't want to take any sort of risk that may reduce their down time?
Software updates would be another concern to account for too. If you're buying a generator, a weed trimmer or toaster - they'll come with a manual, because the functionality isn't going to change for that device or equipment, ever. How an Android phone or laptop works is almost entirely dependent on the software or operating system being used, and those are constantly changing with updates. Slightly different icons or a minor rearrangement is enough to confuse users, and now all the printed manuals are useless or misleading.
I used to think that too when I was younger; "I'd sure live forever if I could!". Or even 500 years or something if the technology was possible. But after reading several sci-fi books on the topic of immortality (and watched few episodes of black mirror), I think I've changed my outlook - death doesn't seem so bad. Sure it would be nice to be immortal and safely observe the earth for a while (maybe?), but if you're immortal, you have to think that opens up the possibility to live some sort of hellish existence in some sort of purgatory or torture. Regardless of how you achieve that immortality (upgraded flesh body, consciousness transfer to machine), there's some possibility you'll be in some state worse than death. Perhaps your consciousness is in some empty space simulation, or you're in some rich guy / alien private museum for hundreds of thousands of years.
The animated film Ninja Scroll comes to mind - near the end of the film, there's an immortal antagonist fighting the protagonist on a ship full of gold. The gold turns to molten (from a fire), covers the antagonist who sinks to the bottom of the ocean encased in gold (presumably, spending the rest of eternity blind, deaf, mute and immobile). Maybe you're better off being dead in that case!
Oh, it would be *SOOO* much better to have a system like the US where only the wealthy can afford healthcare, even if they happen to be obese smokers that'll die a few years after getting the surgery anyway.
Man, what is with these horrible death panels in these socialist countries with single payer plans? When there's a limited amount of surgeries that can be performed on patients, they have the audacity to ensure the patients they choose are more likely to live longer, therefore making each surgery more worth the investment (as opposed to randomly selecting patients, first come first serve, or not letting poor people get surgery). What kind of sick system is this!??!?
Before you go rushing to the hospital in search of antivenin, you’re going to want to look up exactly what kind of snake you’re dealing with. But the results are confusing. According to the official record of species names, governed by the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), the snake belongs to the genus Spracklandus. What you don’t know is that almost no taxonomists use that name. Instead, most researchers use the unofficial name that pops up in Wikipedia and most scientific journal articles: Afronaja. ...This might sound like semantics. But for you, it could mean the difference between life and death.
Seriously, who the hell would walk into a hospital and simply mention the genus of the snake that bit them? Someone mauled by a bear arriving at a hospital wouldn't say a member of the Ursus genus mauled me. Assuming they had enough time to wiki-search the snake while they're rushed to the hospital, they'd barge in with a picture of the snake that bit them and ask for an antidote. If for some reason, the bitten victim is in some sort of delirious Hodor-like state and is unable to communicate any words other than "Spracklandus, Spracklandus , Spracklandus !!", then we'd also have to assume the doctor is unable to research this and gets the wrong snake. And then we'd have to assume that the confirmed snake that bit the patient is visually close enough for the confirmation to be technically the wrong snake, but somehow the anti-venom that's administered is too different to be effective from the actual snake, and the patient dies. And then if this did happen, it would happen once as a freak accident, and policy would change to avoid this scenario from happening in the future.
There's so many levels of unbelievably stupid with this possible scenario. If this is the best worst scenario they can come up with to reassure the readers of the importance of taxonomy - well this leads me to believe it's far less important than I originally assumed.
Any sort of condemnation of a tech company by a U.S. Intelligence agency should be easily spun into a positive selling feature for said company. If the CIA / NSA / 3 letter agency is publicly denouncing your organization, then it's almost certain that they're unable to install their backdoors / rootkit / keyloggers on whatever that company has to sell.
I'm not too convinced this will be useful, especially for casual facebook users. that are actually safe during a crisis but fail to mark themselves as "safe" with this feature. Say there is a crisis in your location, and you're using this to see who's OK in your friend list. 75/100 friends are safe. Phew. What about the other 25? Or even if it's only 8/10 that you really care about. Are they dead because they didn't check in? Or maybe they just forgot their phone that day. As this feature becomes more ubiquitous on facebook, it will increase the worry factor for those not on facebook enough to use it via "false negatives".
The point the GP was making wasn't the point that "if something can be used for EVIL, so we should hold the manufacturer liable if it is". The point was that if you manufacture something with no good or legitimate purpose or if it's obvious the intent is *PURELY* for malice or criminal activities, then the creator should be held liable. This software wasn't something designed for white hats to find security vulnerabilities.
A considerable number of slashdot readers seem to have this weird quasi-libertarian notion that creating something with the intention of malice or subverting the law is just fine and dandy, and the creators should be absolved of responsibility - see The Pirate Bay and Silk Road. "What??? I just created the dark net trading platform that's hidden to authorities!! It's not MYYYY fault if people use it for CP, assassination attempts and selling slaves... It's not like I did the actual crimes!". If your creation has 99% illegitimate uses or is used by 99% of the users for illegitimate & illegal purposes, then maybe you totally knew that when you created it and should be held responsible.
Reminds me of that Death Ray quote from futurama "Amy, technology isn't intrinsically good or evil. It's how it's used. Like the Death Ray.". But even the fucking death ray sounds like it has more legitimate uses than this malware (like potentially killing cancel cells, parasites, or warding off an invading force from Omicron Persei 8)
Hardly a "massive" social turbulence. The number of births where the expected father isn't the real father is somewhere in the neighborhood of 2% (Find your own sources). This wouldn't even be a blip on the radar.
Imagine if pornhub, xhamster, etc... decided to band together and block all access from Congress (or even all of Washington D.C) for 24 hours from accessing their sites. Bonus points if they add some sort of family-values message to their site ("We at [website] have taken the necessary steps to prevent our elected representatives from accessing the ungodly smut they claim is destroying this great nation. You're welcome").
Now that might actually trigger some change!
The phrase "take it to the bank" - this is meant to emphasize something that is certain, or known for sure. But then this is followed by the phrase "phishing them for 3 million" right afterwards. So by using jargon that emphasizes certainty followed by a relatively new English language word (phishing) which technically means attempt (but maybe most readers directly associate this with scammed) - this heavily implies that Mattel was indeed fleeced, robbed, scammed, looted, pillaged, phished or whatever word you want to use.
And technically, they were phished/scammed. The voluntarily handed over the money - they just happened to catch on quickly enough and the money was returned to them. The money was in the other account by then. If someone comes to your door claiming to be a PC repair guy and you voluntarily give them your computer and they leave; guess what - you were scammed. It doesn't matter that you managed to catch on 2 minutes later and chase their vehicle down, or 2 days later to find your PC in the pawn shop - you were scammed. The confusing issue here is that nothing in the title implies that the money was returned, and simply gives the first half of the story (Mattel phished) without indicating the money was returned successfully. But that's hardly the fault of the slashdot editor here, this title is taken verbatim from the CSO article. I hardly think it's the slashdot moderator's job to edit the summary for the titles for potential confusion.
Maybe the NSA could be convinced to do a special TV show appearance on Hoarders. Have some other agencies come together in an intervention to help 'em let go.
DOJ: So NSA... we've got some recorded phone calls here from August 3rd, 2003 between a Darlene [redacted] and her grandson [redacted]
NSA: Yes.. she's born in 1948, lives in Arlington, TX and her SSN is [redacted]. I remember when we first collected those calls.
DOJ: Well then, we listened to this a few times, and it sounds like some fairly innocuous conversation. Nothing criminal whatsoever.
NSA: Right
DHS: So... do you think we can delete these calls then? I mean, there's no..
NSA: NOOOOOO!! There could still be connections to terrorism in those calls... somehow! You never know what we might find on meta-data analysis
DEA: Look... we've identified all the phone references with mentions of drugs, and made copies of those for investigations. We never use the rest of those recordings, and I'm the only one here that really uses those at all. Maybe we could just.. y'know.. delete...
NSA: Don't touch that data! It's mine! I own it!
Help! Help! A giant social network monster is attacking me! It's asking me if I want to join, and it's eaten most of my friends! Ahhhhhh, not my metadata! Now it knows I like cats and anime! That could be used to *gasp* send me targeted ads one day!
At some point all that employment is going to plateau for the people creating all the shit for people (arguably now, or in the next 20 years). To use the GP's point, if a machine replaces 3 workers (that only requires 1 worker for machine maintenance), then that leaves 2 people unemployed. And your point is spot on here too; those 2 displaced workers will generally have to find work in another industry (services), as all the ex-farmers and ex-factory workers have had to do in the last 100 years or so.
But at some point, what we refer to as "jobs" now are diminishing. The numbers of human laborers needed for general manufacturing or farming is at an all time low and generally sufficient for the population in developed countries. Look at how much stuff we have already; the demand for more luxuries isn't going to increase (at least, not as much as it will displace workers. We'll probably see some increase in services, but this will eventually plateau too.
I guess the point I was trying to get at, was what's considered a "job" (at least the GPs definition) will be scarcer at some point in history, and there aren't going to be replacement jobs. There's only so many doctors, nurses, dentists, assistants, other service jobs necessary to keep the population comfortable and happy, while the lion's share of production and transportation will be done by robots. Maybe we'll see people keeping themselves busy with more volunteering, creating art or music, playing sports, or just playing video games & socializing. But those aren't "jobs" by today's definition (maybe for the 0.1% of artists and athletes that can actually make a living at it). So yeah, maybe if we have a basic income and everyone can live somewhat comfortably on that, then we can redefine what those "jobs" are (I'd love to do this and just play / create music, personally). But there won't be enough of those jobs out there by today's definition.
If you have any doubts to the validity of this statement, see video game releases over the last decade (Arkham Knight, Assassin's Creed Unity, etc..). Except now instead of just not being able to play a game, your primary method of transportation might be disabled now. Or maybe the likeliness of an accident has been increased substantially.
So, basically he set up a scenario where people taking the subway couldn't use their cell phones. Or as I like to call it, "When I used to take the subway a decade ago".
The horror of denying access to electronic communication in a location! Throw the book at him!
Aside from many of the privacy issues (already mentioned here by other) was that fact that you needed an invite in order to initially register for an account. When there was some buzz about google + I thought I'd check it out, but couldn't. This was there for at least 3 months and if you somehow got one, you were limited to sending out 15 invites! I don't think I know a single person on Facebook with less than 15 "friends".
That was the real suicide for G+ in my opinion. Most people generally don't give a crap about their privacy (at least non-tech types); that's why they're on Facebook in the first place; to tell the world what they're up to and see what they're up to. But if the entire point of a social networking site is to get you and your friends using it, then why the hell would you restrict that or limit that? Maybe google thought this would word because Facebook was initially college-exclusive. Or maybe because gmail was initially invite only; they didn't think much of it. But this was the far bigger nail in the coffin in my opinion. They needed to get as many people as possible to jump ship from Facebook (or at least try it out, or have accounts on both) in order to get it to work, but they put in an artificial scarcity on access. Surprise surprise; if you got an invite and did join, you found it was a ghost town after a month and went back to Facebook where all your friends are.
Personally, I like to call that time frame selection "Sportscaster statistics". If you're ever watching or listening to highlights or pre-game hype, you'll always hear the most convenient data sampling selection to fit the narrative of a winning or losing streak. "They've won 3 of their last 4!" means they won 3 of the last 5. "Dropped 7 of the last 9" almost certainly indicates they lost 7 of the last 10 games, or maybe 7 out of 11. For some reason, a team never seems to be just average, they're always on a hot or cold streak.
If that number isn't rounded to 5 or 10, or a multiple of 10 (for a fairly low sampling size greater than 10 but less than 100), you should be skeptical of the data and immediately assume the number was picked to fit a narrative.
How do you know it's GMOs causing it? You said yourself that when you switched to "organic, grass fed, no pesticides, no herbicides milk" - suddenly no problem. You've just lumped GMO into the same category as "organic" and assume the health results are a result of it being GMO.
You realize that it may just be the pesticides and not necessarily the GMO-ness of the food? You're aware that food can be *both* GMO and organic, right? Organic simply means that no pesticides or chemical fertilizers were used in the production.
Could be lots of things :
- Genetically engineered airborne supervirus (think 12 Monkeys movie plot)
- Self replicating nano-bot swarm / grey goo
- Actual AI replacing humans
- Nukes
- New type of super-weapon (like a hydrogen bomb) that requires significantly less effect or difficult materials to create
This concept really isn't new; it's one of the ideas of why we haven't seen any evidence of life outside Earth (fermi paradox); that civilizations eventually destroy themselves via technology before they establish bases on other planets. Humans are certainly in that category right now; there's enough nukes out there in existence to do that. The point being made, is that scientific advancements will make it easier for a single individual to kill more other people (possibly wipe out the whole human race) than in any other point in history.
As long as we have a concept of individuality (meaning not a hive mind), there's a risk that some individuals will trigger the downfall of civilization as we know it, and kill all humans (fulfilling the wishes of Bender Rodriguez). This is especially true with the current social and political situations we have now. Whether it's a nutty eco-terrorist looking to wipe out all humans to return to a "natural" state, or a religious fanatic hoping to trigger the apocalypse, or just someone mentally ill - scientific progress will continue to increase the likeliness for a single individual (or a handful) to wipe out humanity. Pretty sure that was the point
Sadly, this is probably the only way the NSA is ever going to be dismantled - when the biggest supporters and cheerleaders from the NSA realize their own conversations are being recorded.
Hey NSA employees! Are you concerned about the overreach of the spying capabilities of your organization? Would you like to do something about it, but not face prison time like Manning, or live a live of exile like Snowden? Well here's your chance to start Operation Dirty Laundry! Find some juicy tidbits from important people out there and stick 'em on the interwebs! Perhaps some sort of exchange between Obama and his doctor, discussing his hemorrhoid problem. Or perhaps a nice conversation between Rubio and Mitch McConnel discussing what a sea cow Angela Merkel is. Maybe a conversation between Paul Ryan and his wife about how she caught one of their kids with pornography. Or how about a tech-heavy conversation between Hillary and one of her aides over her smart phone? Boy I'd love to hear that last one - is she truly tech-ignorant about her private server, or is she playing dumb? Either way, great!
But anyway, it's not time to play party favorites here - try to be equally fair here to both parties here. And don't post anything career-ending for them; just mildly embarrassing content that you wouldn't want your co-workers to know about. They can't take action if their careers are over. Ideally we want the most vocal congressmen and presidential candidates still in the running. Now get to it!
I came across this gem recently : http://www.wisdomofchopra.com/
So, instead of having at least a chance of being home to answer the door with a human driver knocking / ringing the doorbell - the drone is going to drop off the package on my doorstep with no notice? Sure, I suppose you could integrate some app / notification system on a smartphone or something - but that's not going to help if I don't have a smartphone (or it's not around when the package is delivered).
Imagine for a minute that certain drinks with no added salt / sugar were forced to have a label (WARNING: Conatains electrolytes). Or perhaps some like (Contains Di-hydrogen monoxide). How many ignorant people would change their buying patterns based on that? What benefit would this provide for your average consumer?
That's the issue here. Today the anti-GMO argument is "Well, if there's nothing wrong with GMOs, then why don't you label them?" If labeling is enforced, then 10 years from now the anti-GMO movement will be saying "Oh yeah, well if there's nothing bad about GMOs, why are they forced to label them?"
And look at who is profiting - DIng! It's the senior executives and investors of these parasitical companies.
. Oh, the irony in your post. I'm surprised you didn't mention the "parasitical senior executives of craigslist taking away jobs from pawn shop owners that can't support their families".
If you're going to criticize anything Uber does, it should be the blatant disregard for local regulations that put taxis at a disadvantage. Force them to adhere to the same standards that taxis have to do (passenger insurance, proper bookkeeping to ensure drivers pay income tax, sales tax if applicable on fares, etc..) Once they're all on the same playing field, then there's nothing legitimate for taxis to complain about.
And finally, your "race to the bottom of the wage barrel" doesn't really apply here. If prices drop and your average uber driver makes less, then the consumers and passengers benefit! If the level field is completely even and your average cab fare is much lower, then the cab drivers were making far more than they would have via normal supply and demand . The only losers are those that own the medallions (and the taxi drivers who provide shitty customer service; who are forced to clean up their cabs, play music that the customer wants to hear, and clear their cars more frequently. Boo hoo).