The pill has resulted in 1) Higher levels of education and income for women 2) Freedom to choose career opportunities other than domestic servitude 3) Reduced incidence of diseases including endometrial and ovarian cancers 4) Puts women on an equal footing with men regarding reproductive choices 5) Ability to plan to have a family when it is convenient and appropriate 6) Increased happiness both in men and women 7) More talent in the work force 8) Fewer abortions and fewer adoptions needed 9) Healthier children
Yeah it's been a real downer... [/sarcasm]
Hard pass.
Given your attitude I'm pretty sure that's what women will say to you.
Umm, that's great if you never plan to have kids in the future. But it's a little hard to change your mind later on if you go down this route. If that were a good idea you'd see guys in their 20s getting the procedure already.
Condoms are measurably less effective than other methods of birth control. Furthermore they do fail from time to time and can easily be misused or not used. Additionally they are of no protection in the event of rape or simply irresponsible partners.
It has other benefits like not getting diseases.
Not really a concern in a monogamous relationship with someone trustworthy. If you are worried about getting a disease maybe you shouldn't be sticking your naughty bits into that person? Granted sometimes you don't know if you can trust someone but after a time you probably should have some idea.
Works well when you use it right and doesn't mess with your hormones.
Works well but not perfectly. They do fail and are sometimes misused. Women use chemical birth control in part because it doesn't require the consent of their partner to be effective. Getting pregnant is a very big deal and really can put a dent in a women's life plans and prospects just because of one failed condom.
Why is anyone still taking the Pill, when implants are so much more convenient and reliable?
Why don't you ask some women? They aren't all that scary, I promise.
I'll save you some time though: 1) Implants are decidedly less convenient if you decide you want to stop using it 2) Implants require a surgical procedure to install and remove - a minor one but still a procedure with risks 3) Women vary in their responses to medication 4) Higher up front cost (though typically cheaper in the long run) 5) Some types of medication make implants less effective 6) There are some side effects 7) It lasts for about 3 years and you have to remember to get it replaced 8) There are different long term health risk profiles 9) Some women just prefer one method over another
They don't have to accept your transaction terms. They can say no.
Of course they don't. Never argued otherwise. The problem is that SOMEONE is going to have their options restricted. Either the restaurant is allowed to continue to refuse cash transactions and the customers lose choices or the restaurant is forced to accept cash and the restaurant loses choices. Whether the government acts or does not, either way the government is making the choice for someone. No action is still an action even if it is the right thing to do.
For the record I agree with you that the proper course of action is for the government to stay out of it. If the company doesn't want to take cash then that is the company's problem. I don't see any compelling public interest here necessitating government intervention. There is no lack of alternative eating establishments that still take cash so it strikes me as a non-problem.
so a low skill job goes away and a few different high skilled jobs appear.
There is no lack of low skilled jobs. Just because a grocery store doesn't provide one doesn't mean the local farm or a restaurant or a machine shop or a landscaper won't hire the person. Hell, a lot of Americans of a particular political persuasion like to bitch about immigrants "taking their jobs" but despite the fact the argument is wrong on many levels it obviously implies there is a job there to be taken. Farms need help and can pay a certain price for it. If you think you are too good to do that work then that is your problem. The work will be there regardless.
There is a local chain grocery store. A friend works there. It was the stated goal of putting in self-scan to reduce the "cashier nightmare" they had. The goal was to reduce 90 cashiers to 60.
So what? EVERY company eliminates costs when it is possible to do so and do otherwise is foolish. Margins in a grocery store are thin to begin with. You seriously think they aren't going to cut costs whenever they can? They don't hire those people because they are feeling magnanimous but because they don't have a better alternative. Hiring someone is an exchange of labor for capital. It's not some touchy-feely crap about "dignity and respect and joy". If you get those things from a job, great, but it's not the responsibility of the company to provide them. If the company does well then it will grow and people working for it will (probably) benefit as a result. But the purpose of a company is not to provide employment.
Whose charity are you talking about?
If I hire you when I have a more economically efficient means to accomplish the labor you provide then I am being charitable to you.
Swiping the margin and paying it to a stockholder rather than an employee is a fool's sense of productivity gain.
You are arguing that companies should hire employees they don't need. If I have to explain why that is a stupid idea to you then there is no point to further discussion. You're thinking of it as a zero sum game and it isn't. The owners of the company (the stockholders) are able to do what they wish with the profits of the company but companies that are going to be around reinvest profits into the company so the company can grow and hire more people. Retaining employees which are not needed hurts the future prospects of the current and future employees (and other stakeholders) the company does need.
Politician wants you to give up your choices, want to use the police to force his own choices upon you.
This is the "have you stopped beating your wife yet?" argument. Give up choices? Someone has to give something up here. Either A) the customer has to give up choice of payment type or B) the restaurant has to accept a payment type they might not prefer. Why should the rights of the restaurant supersede the customer rights or vice-versa? Someone has to loose this argument. If the politician does nothing then they are de-facto taking the side of the restaurant. If they act then they are taking the side of the individual. But a side will be taken no matter what. There is no middle ground here.
I boycott fast food kiosks; I want humans to be employed, even if they're McJobs. I boycott the self-scan checkout lines for the same reason.
The flaw in your argument is that you assume incorrectly that using kiosks equals reduced employment. Your theory is simple and logical but the problem is that it isn't supported by evidence. Unemployment rates are right in line with if not better than historical norms. You're making an argument based on truthiness rather than actual facts. What actually happens is that people find other jobs doing other more value added activities. The industrial revolution replaced a lot of manual labor (the McJobs of the era) with automation but guess what? Unemployment didn't increase - people found other jobs that previously weren't available. People moved off the farm to jobs that previously didn't even exist.
Jobs need to actually add value. Jobs that exist unjustified by economic need are nothing more than charity. Charity is a good thing but it shouldn't be a permanent state of existence. Keeping an economically inefficient job out of some misplaced idea that you are helping people causes real economic harm to society and individuals. It makes companies that do it less competitive and in the long run it doesn't do the people in the make-work job any favors either.
Umm, you can stroll down to your local Walmart, Dollar Store, Gas Station and trade your cash for a pre-paid "credit-card" anytime.
Of course but you think there are a lot of Walmarts and gas stations in Manhattan? I'm sure there are alternatives where you can get a pre-paid debit card but it sure as hell is a lot less convenient than carrying the cash that is already in your wallet. Furthermore there is a cost to doing that. Time, fuel, financing charges (the cards aren't free), etc.
Lets not even address the elephant in the room, of in modern society you just need a credit card and internet for that matter to function
That's not even remotely true. I have had dozens of people work for me who do not have credit cards and a few of them have pretty much zero interest in the internet. You can get by just fine without the internet. Don't confuse what you find convenient with what is actually necessary to function. Hell, there are huge swaths of the US where internet access is dicey to non-existent. I've gone into plenty of restaurants and other stores that are cash only. You can pay for all your bills, get all your food, and pay for your housing and never touch a credit or debit card once. Doing so can be convenient but it's not required.
You may not be familiar with modern CAD systems. They are not simple 2D and 3D modeling anymore.
Not only am I familiar with them, I've probably spent more time with them than almost everyone who will ever read this comment. Stop conflating CAD software with PLM/PDM/ERP/MRP systems. They are related but are not the same thing.
They are hugely complicated programs now that manage design, drawings, material schedules, equipment lists, interferences, pipe stress, etc. It is simply too complex for an open source project that will be under supported.
This statement is misleading. Most large open source projects are funded by and developed by major corporations. One of them could in principle release their software with an open source license tomorrow and it would change nothing about how it is developed. You're quite right that the CAD systems used by major corporations are often part of a larger ecosystem of project management software. But there are a LOT of companies that still use 2D/3D autocad style software in a standalone (or nearly so) context which have no requirement the sort of project management software you are referring to.
Open source software for sketching and drafting works quite well
Speaking as an engineer who has dealt with this sort of software for years, I can comfortably state that this is not true in a professional engineering context. There is no open source software that is in any danger of duplicating, much less improving on the leading proprietary CAD software available today. It's not even close. The open source stuff that is available is barely more than a toy by comparison.
For transportation at least, plans and sections are being replaced with full 3d models. You define a layer of pavement or a utility duct path and elevation and it will model it. I don't see how open source would come close to handling these particular cases.
The move to 3D models happened decades ago. I was doing 3D solid modeling for automobiles 20 years ago using CATIA, Pro/E, Unigraphics etc. Your statement about open source is a non-sequitur. Open source is a methodology, not a product. You can have a piece of software that does 3D solid modeling that happens to licensed open source. Someone just has to build it first and release it with an open source license and to date nobody really has.
Not everybody in the world is a professional programmer. How about I suggest you learn how to farm the next time you get hungry? Did you build your house from scratch? How about you design and build a new car yourself the next time you want a better one?
Anyone know why you'd want to script CAD documents anyway?
Many of the same sorts of reasons you would want to script office documents like a spreadsheet. Integration with databases is a biggie. Having data in your drawings that can be obtained/maintained dynamically can be a big win. Macros are pretty useful. From a user's perspective it's often about automating tasks which often can be quite repetitive in CAD.
It's honestly kind of a pity that AutoCAD is still a thing. Classic example of network effects much like Microsoft Office. People use it because other people use it more than because of the merits of the software. As software goes it's fine (more or less) but it annoys me that there never has been (to my knowledge) any leading edge CAD software that is open source. Yes there are some options but they tend to trail the closed source options rather badly - often to the point of being basically toys in comparison. To be fair it's a hard problem that requires a lot of domain expertise and math chops. Probably are some patent issues too. But AutoCAD was showing its age decades ago and while it's continued to improve, it's kind of shocking the open source community hasn't provided a viable alternative in the last 20 years to AutoCAD, Solidworks and the rest of the CAD offerings for professional engineering use.
There are lots of people here who will be happy to inform you that the free rider problem is not a problem at all, but a birthright.
A lot of people think a lot of very stupid things. Having an opinion doesn't mean it is objectively correct. A lot of people think crystals have magical healing powers. Doesn't mean I should take them seriously without evidence.
And yet somehow the Fashion Industry survives without copyright
The fashion industry absolutely does use copyright. Clothing is generally specifically excluded from copyright protection as a functional item but it does apply sometimes when the design rises to the level of a creative work. Sometimes it can benefit from design patents or trademarks as well. Furthermore you are comparing apples to oranges. Replicating an article of clothing has a substantial cost, especially at scale. Perhaps you have never seen how clothing is made but it is a laborious process and requires substantial amounts of specialized equipment, fabrics, chemicals, and skilled labor. Replicating written words costs far less and replicating written words digitally is inexpensive as to be approximately zero. Tangible objects generally aren't subject to copyright because the cost to replicate them makes copyright largely irrelevant. Copyright is for protecting intangible works. It isn't the book that is protected by copyright, it is the words in the book that are protected. I can produce a book that is physically identical to The Hobbit just so long as it doesn't have the same words printed in the same order in it.
In school kids are taught to share their toys.
Which is completely irrelevant to this discussion. Sharing is for things you cannot copy. If you copy it by definition you aren't sharing it. Sharing means you give someone something and deprive yourself voluntarily of it (in part or in whole) for a time. You can say you are sharing an idea but what you really are doing is providing a copy of the idea.
As adults digital sharing is illegal and (excessively) fined.
It's not sharing. It's copying. And copying WITHOUT PERMISSION is what is prohibited because of the free rider problem. You can go ahead and get permission and then you can copy it all you like. Without such protection, a lot of creative works will never get made because it's FAR cheaper to copy someone else's idea than it is to come up with it yourself. Only someone very naive will think that economics plays no role in the creation of artistic works.
for information that doctors and hospitals could use to improve treatment and cut costs, the latest move by a big technology company into the health care industry. The software can read digitized patient records and other clinical notes, analyze them and pluck out key data points, Amazon says.
If they think that cutting costs and improving treatment will be the primary use of these tools they are either incredibly naive or lying. This sort of data mining might get used for some research but it will mostly be used to make someone a pile of money at our expense.
"We're able to completely, automatically look inside medical language and identify patient details," including diagnoses, treatments, dosage and strengths, "with incredibly high accuracy,"
Copyright is rent-seeking and harms society as a whole. It should not exist at all.
Really? You've found a solution to the free rider problem as it applies to creative works? Please publish it and collect your Nobel Prize in Economics immediately because nobody else has found a better solution.
Copyright needs some serious reform and much shorter protection periods but to claim that it is harmful in general is a claim not supported by the evidence.
"As website blocking has had a positive impact in other countries without significant unintended consequences, the U.S. should reconsider adding this to its anti-piracy tool box," the RIAA and NMPA write.
Positive impact without unintended consequences FOR THEM I'm sure. Otherwise that statement is the steamiest of wet bullshit.
I have not yet found a product line that would fit all my home automation needs (like lights, door lock, surveillance cameras, garage door, intrusion detection, shutters, smoke detection, home entertainment control and so on), has a UI that doesn't make you want to pull out your hair by the roots AND is actually affordable.
As the saying goes, you can have it good, fast, or cheap. Pick two. I agree that home automation tech to date is a clusterfuck of incompatible standards, sketchy hardware, poor security practices, and godawful interfaces. The problem is that they sell you a device but have no further incentives to actually keep it up to date or to use good network security practices or to actually make something that works well. They just are incentivized to sell you something Good Enough to buy it and don't give a shit after that.
So am I being naive or haven I just not yet stumbled upon the right product?
You're not naive. There are a few decent standalone products out there but I don't think there is a well designed and integrated system for reasonable amounts of money and/or time. And what there is tends to become obsolete or problematic in fairly short order. The worst part is that there is no financial incentive for companies to upgrade or maintain their products once they sell them to you. I haven't found anything I would trust that involved security to my home. Again the problem is that there is no financial incentive for them to build and maintain a good product with good security practices. I have a Nest thermostat which I can verify is a pretty good and (to date) well maintained piece of kit but I haven't found much else worth bothering with. If someone wanted to screw with my thermostat, it's not the end of the world but I'm not feeling the same about my garage door openers if you get my drift. If you want a security system, the best options still seem to be third party services which aren't great but are (usually) better than the roll your own options.
Oh and I don't trust the voice offerings from Amazon, Google, etc for reasons that are pretty self evident as well as the fact I doubt I'd ever use them. Again their incentives don't really align well with mine for those sorts of products. Even if I did trust them, I still don't trust the third party companies I would use to control my lights or doors for the reasons above. Google might hypothetically make a secure product but I have no expectation that the company controlling the locks will be as reliable.
In the past, a single house hold earner could provide for a family. Now it takes two.
Median household income in the US is around $44K per year. Given that most people manage to get by just fine obviously that is more than enough to provide for a family. No it won't by you a house in Beverly Hills but it's plenty enough to put food on the table and take care of necessities.
Government regulations and their impact on manufacturers.
I work in manufacturing and have made my career there. Your argument that government regulations have much to do with the problems in manufacturing highlights the fact that you don't know much about the economics of manufacturing. Manufacturing is doing just fine in the US. The US manufacturing sector is worth about $3 TRILLION annually which by itself would be among the 6 largest economies in the world. What has changed in the US is that wages have risen to among the highest in the world so all the labor intensive manufacturing left for places with low labor costs. Capital intensive manufacturing has remained because the US has the lowest cost of capital in the world. Government regulations are if anything helping by keeping cost of capital low.
The only major problem US manufacturing has right now is we have an idiot president (and cronies) who think that raising the cost of everything we buy is somehow going to magically going to benefit us. Tariffs will solve no problem that currently exists in manufacturing. They will not bring manufacturing jobs to the US (actually the opposite is what will happen) and they will not force China to play nice.
Slashdot Mirror
Just look at how the pill has effected women.
Yeah let's do that shall we?
The pill has resulted in
1) Higher levels of education and income for women
2) Freedom to choose career opportunities other than domestic servitude
3) Reduced incidence of diseases including endometrial and ovarian cancers
4) Puts women on an equal footing with men regarding reproductive choices
5) Ability to plan to have a family when it is convenient and appropriate
6) Increased happiness both in men and women
7) More talent in the work force
8) Fewer abortions and fewer adoptions needed
9) Healthier children
Yeah it's been a real downer... [/sarcasm]
Hard pass.
Given your attitude I'm pretty sure that's what women will say to you.
Just get a vasectomy and shoot blanks instead.
Umm, that's great if you never plan to have kids in the future. But it's a little hard to change your mind later on if you go down this route. If that were a good idea you'd see guys in their 20s getting the procedure already.
This is truly the last thing I expected to see on Slashdot.
Just because you can't get laid doesn't mean the rest of us cannot.
Plus it's interesting medical/science news and some of us nerds here have an interest in such things.
You could just wear a condom.
Condoms are measurably less effective than other methods of birth control. Furthermore they do fail from time to time and can easily be misused or not used. Additionally they are of no protection in the event of rape or simply irresponsible partners.
It has other benefits like not getting diseases.
Not really a concern in a monogamous relationship with someone trustworthy. If you are worried about getting a disease maybe you shouldn't be sticking your naughty bits into that person? Granted sometimes you don't know if you can trust someone but after a time you probably should have some idea.
Works well when you use it right and doesn't mess with your hormones.
Works well but not perfectly. They do fail and are sometimes misused. Women use chemical birth control in part because it doesn't require the consent of their partner to be effective. Getting pregnant is a very big deal and really can put a dent in a women's life plans and prospects just because of one failed condom.
Why is anyone still taking the Pill, when implants are so much more convenient and reliable?
Why don't you ask some women? They aren't all that scary, I promise.
I'll save you some time though:
1) Implants are decidedly less convenient if you decide you want to stop using it
2) Implants require a surgical procedure to install and remove - a minor one but still a procedure with risks
3) Women vary in their responses to medication
4) Higher up front cost (though typically cheaper in the long run)
5) Some types of medication make implants less effective
6) There are some side effects
7) It lasts for about 3 years and you have to remember to get it replaced
8) There are different long term health risk profiles
9) Some women just prefer one method over another
They don't have to accept your transaction terms. They can say no.
Of course they don't. Never argued otherwise. The problem is that SOMEONE is going to have their options restricted. Either the restaurant is allowed to continue to refuse cash transactions and the customers lose choices or the restaurant is forced to accept cash and the restaurant loses choices. Whether the government acts or does not, either way the government is making the choice for someone. No action is still an action even if it is the right thing to do.
For the record I agree with you that the proper course of action is for the government to stay out of it. If the company doesn't want to take cash then that is the company's problem. I don't see any compelling public interest here necessitating government intervention. There is no lack of alternative eating establishments that still take cash so it strikes me as a non-problem.
so a low skill job goes away and a few different high skilled jobs appear.
There is no lack of low skilled jobs. Just because a grocery store doesn't provide one doesn't mean the local farm or a restaurant or a machine shop or a landscaper won't hire the person. Hell, a lot of Americans of a particular political persuasion like to bitch about immigrants "taking their jobs" but despite the fact the argument is wrong on many levels it obviously implies there is a job there to be taken. Farms need help and can pay a certain price for it. If you think you are too good to do that work then that is your problem. The work will be there regardless.
There is a local chain grocery store. A friend works there. It was the stated goal of putting in self-scan to reduce the "cashier nightmare" they had. The goal was to reduce 90 cashiers to 60.
So what? EVERY company eliminates costs when it is possible to do so and do otherwise is foolish. Margins in a grocery store are thin to begin with. You seriously think they aren't going to cut costs whenever they can? They don't hire those people because they are feeling magnanimous but because they don't have a better alternative. Hiring someone is an exchange of labor for capital. It's not some touchy-feely crap about "dignity and respect and joy". If you get those things from a job, great, but it's not the responsibility of the company to provide them. If the company does well then it will grow and people working for it will (probably) benefit as a result. But the purpose of a company is not to provide employment.
Whose charity are you talking about?
If I hire you when I have a more economically efficient means to accomplish the labor you provide then I am being charitable to you.
Swiping the margin and paying it to a stockholder rather than an employee is a fool's sense of productivity gain.
You are arguing that companies should hire employees they don't need. If I have to explain why that is a stupid idea to you then there is no point to further discussion. You're thinking of it as a zero sum game and it isn't. The owners of the company (the stockholders) are able to do what they wish with the profits of the company but companies that are going to be around reinvest profits into the company so the company can grow and hire more people. Retaining employees which are not needed hurts the future prospects of the current and future employees (and other stakeholders) the company does need.
Politician wants you to give up your choices, want to use the police to force his own choices upon you.
This is the "have you stopped beating your wife yet?" argument. Give up choices? Someone has to give something up here. Either A) the customer has to give up choice of payment type or B) the restaurant has to accept a payment type they might not prefer. Why should the rights of the restaurant supersede the customer rights or vice-versa? Someone has to loose this argument. If the politician does nothing then they are de-facto taking the side of the restaurant. If they act then they are taking the side of the individual. But a side will be taken no matter what. There is no middle ground here.
I boycott fast food kiosks; I want humans to be employed, even if they're McJobs. I boycott the self-scan checkout lines for the same reason.
The flaw in your argument is that you assume incorrectly that using kiosks equals reduced employment. Your theory is simple and logical but the problem is that it isn't supported by evidence. Unemployment rates are right in line with if not better than historical norms. You're making an argument based on truthiness rather than actual facts. What actually happens is that people find other jobs doing other more value added activities. The industrial revolution replaced a lot of manual labor (the McJobs of the era) with automation but guess what? Unemployment didn't increase - people found other jobs that previously weren't available. People moved off the farm to jobs that previously didn't even exist.
Jobs need to actually add value. Jobs that exist unjustified by economic need are nothing more than charity. Charity is a good thing but it shouldn't be a permanent state of existence. Keeping an economically inefficient job out of some misplaced idea that you are helping people causes real economic harm to society and individuals. It makes companies that do it less competitive and in the long run it doesn't do the people in the make-work job any favors either.
Umm, you can stroll down to your local Walmart, Dollar Store, Gas Station and trade your cash for a pre-paid "credit-card" anytime.
Of course but you think there are a lot of Walmarts and gas stations in Manhattan? I'm sure there are alternatives where you can get a pre-paid debit card but it sure as hell is a lot less convenient than carrying the cash that is already in your wallet. Furthermore there is a cost to doing that. Time, fuel, financing charges (the cards aren't free), etc.
Lets not even address the elephant in the room, of in modern society you just need a credit card and internet for that matter to function
That's not even remotely true. I have had dozens of people work for me who do not have credit cards and a few of them have pretty much zero interest in the internet. You can get by just fine without the internet. Don't confuse what you find convenient with what is actually necessary to function. Hell, there are huge swaths of the US where internet access is dicey to non-existent. I've gone into plenty of restaurants and other stores that are cash only. You can pay for all your bills, get all your food, and pay for your housing and never touch a credit or debit card once. Doing so can be convenient but it's not required.
It WILL be used not only to undermine foreign carmakers' competitive position, but also for surveillance
Fixed that for you.
You may not be familiar with modern CAD systems. They are not simple 2D and 3D modeling anymore.
Not only am I familiar with them, I've probably spent more time with them than almost everyone who will ever read this comment. Stop conflating CAD software with PLM/PDM/ERP/MRP systems. They are related but are not the same thing.
They are hugely complicated programs now that manage design, drawings, material schedules, equipment lists, interferences, pipe stress, etc. It is simply too complex for an open source project that will be under supported.
This statement is misleading. Most large open source projects are funded by and developed by major corporations. One of them could in principle release their software with an open source license tomorrow and it would change nothing about how it is developed. You're quite right that the CAD systems used by major corporations are often part of a larger ecosystem of project management software. But there are a LOT of companies that still use 2D/3D autocad style software in a standalone (or nearly so) context which have no requirement the sort of project management software you are referring to.
Open source software for sketching and drafting works quite well
Speaking as an engineer who has dealt with this sort of software for years, I can comfortably state that this is not true in a professional engineering context. There is no open source software that is in any danger of duplicating, much less improving on the leading proprietary CAD software available today. It's not even close. The open source stuff that is available is barely more than a toy by comparison.
For transportation at least, plans and sections are being replaced with full 3d models. You define a layer of pavement or a utility duct path and elevation and it will model it. I don't see how open source would come close to handling these particular cases.
The move to 3D models happened decades ago. I was doing 3D solid modeling for automobiles 20 years ago using CATIA, Pro/E, Unigraphics etc. Your statement about open source is a non-sequitur. Open source is a methodology, not a product. You can have a piece of software that does 3D solid modeling that happens to licensed open source. Someone just has to build it first and release it with an open source license and to date nobody really has.
Quit whining and get coding.
Not everybody in the world is a professional programmer. How about I suggest you learn how to farm the next time you get hungry? Did you build your house from scratch? How about you design and build a new car yourself the next time you want a better one?
Anyone know why you'd want to script CAD documents anyway?
Many of the same sorts of reasons you would want to script office documents like a spreadsheet. Integration with databases is a biggie. Having data in your drawings that can be obtained/maintained dynamically can be a big win. Macros are pretty useful. From a user's perspective it's often about automating tasks which often can be quite repetitive in CAD.
With apologies to Dorothy Parker, what fresh hell is this?
Might be hell but it's not fresh. It's been around for over 30 years. I cannot speak to its merits good or bad but it's definitely not new.
It's honestly kind of a pity that AutoCAD is still a thing. Classic example of network effects much like Microsoft Office. People use it because other people use it more than because of the merits of the software. As software goes it's fine (more or less) but it annoys me that there never has been (to my knowledge) any leading edge CAD software that is open source. Yes there are some options but they tend to trail the closed source options rather badly - often to the point of being basically toys in comparison. To be fair it's a hard problem that requires a lot of domain expertise and math chops. Probably are some patent issues too. But AutoCAD was showing its age decades ago and while it's continued to improve, it's kind of shocking the open source community hasn't provided a viable alternative in the last 20 years to AutoCAD, Solidworks and the rest of the CAD offerings for professional engineering use.
There are lots of people here who will be happy to inform you that the free rider problem is not a problem at all, but a birthright.
A lot of people think a lot of very stupid things. Having an opinion doesn't mean it is objectively correct. A lot of people think crystals have magical healing powers. Doesn't mean I should take them seriously without evidence.
And yet somehow the Fashion Industry survives without copyright
The fashion industry absolutely does use copyright. Clothing is generally specifically excluded from copyright protection as a functional item but it does apply sometimes when the design rises to the level of a creative work. Sometimes it can benefit from design patents or trademarks as well. Furthermore you are comparing apples to oranges. Replicating an article of clothing has a substantial cost, especially at scale. Perhaps you have never seen how clothing is made but it is a laborious process and requires substantial amounts of specialized equipment, fabrics, chemicals, and skilled labor. Replicating written words costs far less and replicating written words digitally is inexpensive as to be approximately zero. Tangible objects generally aren't subject to copyright because the cost to replicate them makes copyright largely irrelevant. Copyright is for protecting intangible works. It isn't the book that is protected by copyright, it is the words in the book that are protected. I can produce a book that is physically identical to The Hobbit just so long as it doesn't have the same words printed in the same order in it.
In school kids are taught to share their toys.
Which is completely irrelevant to this discussion. Sharing is for things you cannot copy. If you copy it by definition you aren't sharing it. Sharing means you give someone something and deprive yourself voluntarily of it (in part or in whole) for a time. You can say you are sharing an idea but what you really are doing is providing a copy of the idea.
As adults digital sharing is illegal and (excessively) fined.
It's not sharing. It's copying. And copying WITHOUT PERMISSION is what is prohibited because of the free rider problem. You can go ahead and get permission and then you can copy it all you like. Without such protection, a lot of creative works will never get made because it's FAR cheaper to copy someone else's idea than it is to come up with it yourself. Only someone very naive will think that economics plays no role in the creation of artistic works.
for information that doctors and hospitals could use to improve treatment and cut costs, the latest move by a big technology company into the health care industry. The software can read digitized patient records and other clinical notes, analyze them and pluck out key data points, Amazon says.
If they think that cutting costs and improving treatment will be the primary use of these tools they are either incredibly naive or lying. This sort of data mining might get used for some research but it will mostly be used to make someone a pile of money at our expense.
"We're able to completely, automatically look inside medical language and identify patient details," including diagnoses, treatments, dosage and strengths, "with incredibly high accuracy,"
Yeah, no way that could possibly be abused...
Copyright is rent-seeking and harms society as a whole. It should not exist at all.
Really? You've found a solution to the free rider problem as it applies to creative works? Please publish it and collect your Nobel Prize in Economics immediately because nobody else has found a better solution.
Copyright needs some serious reform and much shorter protection periods but to claim that it is harmful in general is a claim not supported by the evidence.
"As website blocking has had a positive impact in other countries without significant unintended consequences, the U.S. should reconsider adding this to its anti-piracy tool box," the RIAA and NMPA write.
Positive impact without unintended consequences FOR THEM I'm sure. Otherwise that statement is the steamiest of wet bullshit.
I have not yet found a product line that would fit all my home automation needs (like lights, door lock, surveillance cameras, garage door, intrusion detection, shutters, smoke detection, home entertainment control and so on), has a UI that doesn't make you want to pull out your hair by the roots AND is actually affordable.
As the saying goes, you can have it good, fast, or cheap. Pick two. I agree that home automation tech to date is a clusterfuck of incompatible standards, sketchy hardware, poor security practices, and godawful interfaces. The problem is that they sell you a device but have no further incentives to actually keep it up to date or to use good network security practices or to actually make something that works well. They just are incentivized to sell you something Good Enough to buy it and don't give a shit after that.
So am I being naive or haven I just not yet stumbled upon the right product?
You're not naive. There are a few decent standalone products out there but I don't think there is a well designed and integrated system for reasonable amounts of money and/or time. And what there is tends to become obsolete or problematic in fairly short order. The worst part is that there is no financial incentive for companies to upgrade or maintain their products once they sell them to you. I haven't found anything I would trust that involved security to my home. Again the problem is that there is no financial incentive for them to build and maintain a good product with good security practices. I have a Nest thermostat which I can verify is a pretty good and (to date) well maintained piece of kit but I haven't found much else worth bothering with. If someone wanted to screw with my thermostat, it's not the end of the world but I'm not feeling the same about my garage door openers if you get my drift. If you want a security system, the best options still seem to be third party services which aren't great but are (usually) better than the roll your own options.
Oh and I don't trust the voice offerings from Amazon, Google, etc for reasons that are pretty self evident as well as the fact I doubt I'd ever use them. Again their incentives don't really align well with mine for those sorts of products. Even if I did trust them, I still don't trust the third party companies I would use to control my lights or doors for the reasons above. Google might hypothetically make a secure product but I have no expectation that the company controlling the locks will be as reliable.
In the past, a single house hold earner could provide for a family. Now it takes two.
Median household income in the US is around $44K per year. Given that most people manage to get by just fine obviously that is more than enough to provide for a family. No it won't by you a house in Beverly Hills but it's plenty enough to put food on the table and take care of necessities.
Government regulations and their impact on manufacturers.
I work in manufacturing and have made my career there. Your argument that government regulations have much to do with the problems in manufacturing highlights the fact that you don't know much about the economics of manufacturing. Manufacturing is doing just fine in the US. The US manufacturing sector is worth about $3 TRILLION annually which by itself would be among the 6 largest economies in the world. What has changed in the US is that wages have risen to among the highest in the world so all the labor intensive manufacturing left for places with low labor costs. Capital intensive manufacturing has remained because the US has the lowest cost of capital in the world. Government regulations are if anything helping by keeping cost of capital low.
The only major problem US manufacturing has right now is we have an idiot president (and cronies) who think that raising the cost of everything we buy is somehow going to magically going to benefit us. Tariffs will solve no problem that currently exists in manufacturing. They will not bring manufacturing jobs to the US (actually the opposite is what will happen) and they will not force China to play nice.