The Quebecois point out that the area was settled first by France
A historical curiosity. Nothing more. Has very little to do with modern language and communication needs.
As to why French is supposedly the language of diplomacy and international discourse . . . good salesmanship?
French hasn't been the language of diplomacy and international discourse for a hundred years. English has assumed that role for better or worse. "Lingua Franca" is just an expression rather than a reality now.
I will. There are a lot of good reasons to have an official language. Costs, same expectations, safety, I could go on.
Most places have a de-facto language or at most two. People need to communicate and they're pretty good at figuring out how. In any locality there is a strong tendency to end up with the same language because of the need to communicate. Making it a law is at best redundant and at worst economically damaging if you take it to the extreme's Quebec has. The US doesn't have an official language because it doesn't need one. Neither does Canada really and I've spent enough of my life in Canada to know.
The US is spending many billions of dollar trying to make every in every language.
Nonsense. At most the US worries about English and sometimes Spanish. You might find other languages in places like airports where people might just be passing through but there is hardly any big effort to accommodate every language out there. You put signs in the most common language and if that eventually changes then you change the sign. Language should follow the people, not the other way around.
Near a border is a an irrelevant legal distinction. You're in one region or the other. And you have to comply with the laws of that region. And yes, you should have to.
Even if those laws are morally wrong or economically stupid? Just because it is a law doesn't make it a good idea nor does it mean that you should automatically comply with a stupid and pointless law. Fight the good fight if it is worth fighting. I know plenty of businessmen (including some of my family) who refuse to do business in France because of the burden of this language law.
They want to defend their culture against the cultural imperialism of the US and their use of the English language.
Passing laws like this will not "defend their culture". It merely hurts them economically, makes them look stupid to the rest of the world, and at best delays the inevitable changes that will occur. Furthermore, the VAST majority of Canada (you know, the country they are part of) speaks English as their primary language so your argument that this has anything to do with the US is bogus on the face of it. Just because you speak a different or additional language doesn't mean your culture has to change in any significant way. They can still speak French all they want. But if people want to speak or otherwise communicate in a different language then that should be their prerogative. Not much of a democracy if you can't speak in your own voice with your own language.
How fucked up has the world become where everyone gets to decide what a store owner "needs to" do but the store owner.
Oh you mean we shouldn't require people to keep their storefront clear of trash? We shouldn't require them to pay their employees? How about we let them dump hazardous chemicals wherever they want? Look, this language law is stupid both morally and economically but let's not expand the stupidity by claiming that every requirement a business is subjected to is dumb. Some are very good ideas and others not so much. This language law falls into the not so much category.
What I'm confused by is why both France and Quebec are so damn defensive about their language. It's not anything special.
And you are a mathematician with an expertise in cryptography? You've looked at the code yourself to verify? You've examined peer reviewed literature which tests the encryption systems? You are somehow certain that the cryptography is immune from reasonably foreseeable technology and the math is bulletproof?
The issue I have with it is the possibility of hacks.
That is certainly the more immediate risk but hardly the only concern one ought to have with bitcoin.
This issue--my inability to know that my coins are secure--has made me reluctant to buy them in the past.
The reason I haven't bought any bitcoins is because I have no use for them. Bitcoin allows me to do nothing I can't already do, doesn't save me any money, nobody I know personally uses them, no companies I do business with accept them and I have little interest in speculating on something so unpredictably volatile. (I have the stock market for that) I also don't have any ideological issues with the dollar significant enough to make me want to use something else.
Wouldn't transferring some bitcoins from your phone be more convenient than bringing a selection of gold and silver coins whenever you plan to buy something?
Kind of a strawman argument. The real question is whether transferring bitcoins is more convenient than transferring dollars from my phone. Frankly I can't really think of any meaningful advantages to bitcoin compared with dollars especially once you account for all the costs and the risks.
You don't have to transfer actual gold, you can transfer a note backed by a bank or government that guarantees a fixed amount of gold. Such a note can be exchanged physically, or electronically if it's held by a reputable 3rd party (such as a bank or a government) under an account in one's name.
True but that causes problems with exchange rates over time and has a variety of significant and very real logistical problems.
OH WAIT I JUST DESCRIBED UNITED STATES DOLLARS ON THE GOLD STANDARD
Yes you did. What you did not describe is why it ultimately failed. The gold standard failed for some very good reasons. It limits economic growth because the supply of capital cannot grow (or shrink) with the economy. It eliminates monetary policy as a tool to mitigate recessions. It makes re-balancing exchange rates and currency devaluation problematic. There are all kinds of short term volatility problems. There are quite a few reasons why not a single country in the world uses the gold standard anymore.
Most of the people with large bitcoin fortunes are early adopters, and frankly why shouldn't early adopters be rewarded for taking a risk on something that ultimately may not pan out.
What risk? They "mined" some bitcoins by using some spare processor cycles on their PC and then convinced a bunch of folks that it was valuable currency. They exposed themselves to essentially zero financial risk aside from a bit of opportunity cost. At least to get a large pile of dollars you typically have to actually take some real risks unless you win the lottery.
Uh yeah, and speaking of history, perhaps we could bring back the Glass-Steagall Act that should have been left intact.
A form of that regulation has been put back in place though I agree Glass-Steagall never should have been messed with.
I find it comical that you think current monetary policy actually works.
It DOES work insofar as it is able. The problem is that monetary policy, while important, should not be relied upon exclusively to manage the economy - we need sensible fiscal policy too. Congress refuses do do much of anything (sane) regarding fiscal policy so the only tool we have in the bag right now is monetary policy which is significantly dictated by the Fed. We have the monetary policy we do because until congress actually does something, it is the best (and really only) option available. All the people who dislike the Fed really should be upset that congress has essentially abdicated their control of the economic policy of the US by their refusal to compromise and pass sane financial legislation.
Bitcoin has been gaining traction for a long time. Did you notice the run from $5 to $1200?
Beenie babies had a similar run a few years back. Eventually the bubble collapsed. No different here in all likelihood. And bitcoin hasn't been doing anything "for a long time". It's been around less than 5 years and there are VERY few things that go up 240X in 5 years that are based on sound economic fundamentals. It hasn't been around long enough for that to be possible. Just because something gains a lot in value in a (very) short amount of time, does not mean that it will sustain that valuation or that it is anything more than a fad. Come back to me in 20 years and we can talk about it "gaining traction for a long time".
I never trusted bitcoin in the first place. WAY too much risk and provides me precisely zero advantages for any financial transaction I'm likely to engage in.
Back when inflation was 10+% and US savings accounts were legally capped at 5.25%, you could put your money in a European bank and get real interest, but no insurance: "Eurodollars"
Right, but even then dollars were MUCH more stable currencies than bitcoin. If I were a bank I wouldn't touch bitcoin with a barge pole. There is a reason banks tend to avoid foreign currencies with high inflation or heavy volatility. Very hard to make money.
Banks fail far less frequently than home-made BtC exchanges in recent decades.
unfortunately we lack the material necessary for the "cables", at least in any manufacturable form.
That is just the tip of the iceberg of things we lack. The cables are just the most obvious missing technology. You need things like power, HVAC, orbital debris removal, meteor defense, terrorist defense systems, a base strong enough and heavy enough to hold on to it on both ends, elevator systems, servicing equipment, some way to actually construct the darn thing and equipment to do it, vastly more advanced robotics, and much much more. These things might be more mundane but they are no less important and all of it would have to be developed. Many of the problems are probably solvable but that doesn't make them trivial.
The space elevator can't seem to shake its image as something that's just ridiculous
Maybe because it IS ridiculous. It's a cool idea but it is science fiction and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
But there are plenty of scientists who take the idea quite seriously, and they're trying to buck that perception.
Plenty? No there aren't. We do not have the technology to build this and will not have said technology anytime soon. I know someone will say "but carbon nanotubes!" and they are still in the realm of science fiction when it comes to uses like this. Even if we did have the technology, the economic case for it is far from clear. This thing would be hugely expensive, potentially incredibly dangerous (imagine it breaking), requires technology we aren't even close to having, have an uncertain economic payback, be a target for terrorists, etc. Maybe in a few hundred years it will be possible but it isn't going to happen in the lifetime of anyone reading this.
To that end, a diverse group of experts at the behest of the International Academy of Astronautics completed an impressively thorough study this month...
Which you can buy in hardcover for just $29.95. Perhaps if they were really serious about it they might not be trying to sell the report for a profit.
So you can carry it around with you and take pictures with it.
Among other things. Being able to carry it around is a huge deal. Not sure why that fact seems to elude you.
Essentially you're paying $600 down and $40 a month for a camera that makes you think you're Johnny Sokko.
You can drop the smug attempt at acting cooler than the room. Nobody is impressed little hipster. I probably get more value out of my smartphone than I do out of my PC and my PC costs about the same once you account for the data plan. If it is worth the money to me then it is worth it. If your needs are different then do something that fits your needs.
Whatever spins your propeller. Just don't try to sell the idea that its a replacement for a PC, because it isn't and it never will be.
Who ever claimed a smartphone was a replacement for a PC? About the only place they overlap is for email and some web browsing.
The smartphone is inferior to the PC in almost every way:
Really? It fits in my pocket, lasts longer on battery than my laptop, it weighs (far) less, it is a phone, I can take pictures with it, it doesn't require a mouse or keyboard to be useful, I can use it to navigate places where I can't take a PC, I can take it places I would never take a PC, I don't have to worry (much) about malware, it wakes up instantly, I can run with it and listen to music while running, it has sensors like accelerometers that aren't very useful on a PC and certainly never are standard. "Inferior in every way"? Pul-leeeze.
BTW most of your points about why it is "worse" are either complete nonsense or only make sense if you foolishly think that a smartphone should be a PC. If you want to use a PC, go right ahead. No one is standing in your way.
(oh and if you're thinking of making some snarky "drink the cool-aid" remark, just go ahead and stuff it)
Elegance is always defined by the lack of complexity, not by the addition of it.
Not necessarily. You can have something that is both elegant and complex. It's just more difficult to pull off. While as a rule of thumb you are correct that simpler does more often result in something elegant, elegance is not defined by simplicity. The two are independent concepts.
That said I do tend to like Colin Chapman's philosophy of "simplify, then add lightness". Minimalism can be a very beautiful thing.
Not in the last 40 years it hasn't been - not for anyplace I'd want to live anyway. Maybe if you lucked into a rent controlled apartment or something but affordable is not a word I would ever use to describe anything close to NYC. I almost moved out to NYC a few years back and shopped for houses on Long Island, Brooklyn and up towards White Plains. A very modest house cost 4X what it does out here in the midwest where I live now and I'm not even talking about places like Manhattan where the cost per square foot goes into the stratosphere. A house that would cost around $100K here costs around $400K anywhere close to NYC.
and now Manhattan is probably the safest city (or city portion, and definitely downtown area) in America.
You're going to have to provide a LOT of data to back that assertion up. Manhattan is like any big city downtown area with the same features and dangers. I can think of plenty of cities where I would feel more safe than Manhattan. Crime has obviously fallen in NYC but "safest city in America"? Color me dubious.
Would you similarly suggest that diamonds are worthless if your neighborhood jeweler got robbed?
Do you store your diamonds at your neighborhood jeweler? Do you try to pay people for things in diamonds? Do you use diamonds as a currency? Care to try for a better analogy?
The US financial system is not a safe place for your money.
Right, that's why the world regards it as the safest place for their money and the dollar is the world's reserve currency. Need evidence? All you have to do is look at the popularity of treasury bonds. If the dollar was regarded as unsafe the US government would have to pay a LOT more interest than they do. The only people who actually believe what you claim are those who hide their money in a tin can in the back yard.
I was referring to the parent post who said "deactivates and wipes EVERY PHONE", which would not be very useful.
That would be VERY useful to someone who wants to interfere with first responders, or for governments that want to suppress free speech, nation states that want to cause problems for other countries, or for malicious assholes who just want to be pricks. There is profit to be made and almost every malicious activity is useful to someone.
Incidentally, most MDs are flattering themselves when they think the work they are doing requires a lot of intelligence.
Well I'm married to an MD so I know this situation well and you are both right and wrong. Most people who go through medical school are REALLY good at absorbing and regurgitating large amounts of data. It's what makes them really good students and a significant part of their job is to be a walking database of medical information. They need to know a LOT of information and have it on instant recall to do their job well. They are however someone mixed in their ability to analyze that data. Some are really good, some not so much though very few are actually bad at it. Being able to analyze data is a huge asset in the actual practice of medicine not to mention the research that many of them do. It doesn't matter much for the more routine stuff but it matters a lot for more difficult cases. When you are near the edge of medical knowledge or the information is unclear a database isn't nearly as much help. At that point you have to reason through what is going on and something like Watson is typically of less value.
A disturbing amount of medical diagnosis is frankly guesswork or opinions. There are diseases that we don't really understand the causes of completely (like melanoma) and diagnosing these has no clear and universal criteria. Also people don't always share (intentionally and not) all relevant information. Essentially you are making an educated guess about how a tumor might behave in the future based on imperfect information.
The place where systems like Watson are most useful is in making (more) complete differentials. Given a list of symptoms there is a list of potential disease processes. Some of the more unusual ones are pretty easy to overlook and doctors do this routinely (not on purpose) because they might not know or might forget about some uncommon disease they rarely or never see. If you live in the midwest USA, you probably aren't really worried about malaria and it's pretty unlikely you'll see it. Most of the time it doesn't matter but when it does it really matters. However, it is virtually impossible for a database to get the whole picture. There are bits of information that don't fit neatly into a database table and even the ones that do cannot be entered fast enough to be useful.
Slashdot Mirror
The Quebecois point out that the area was settled first by France
A historical curiosity. Nothing more. Has very little to do with modern language and communication needs.
As to why French is supposedly the language of diplomacy and international discourse . . . good salesmanship?
French hasn't been the language of diplomacy and international discourse for a hundred years. English has assumed that role for better or worse. "Lingua Franca" is just an expression rather than a reality now.
I will. There are a lot of good reasons to have an official language. Costs, same expectations, safety, I could go on.
Most places have a de-facto language or at most two. People need to communicate and they're pretty good at figuring out how. In any locality there is a strong tendency to end up with the same language because of the need to communicate. Making it a law is at best redundant and at worst economically damaging if you take it to the extreme's Quebec has. The US doesn't have an official language because it doesn't need one. Neither does Canada really and I've spent enough of my life in Canada to know.
The US is spending many billions of dollar trying to make every in every language.
Nonsense. At most the US worries about English and sometimes Spanish. You might find other languages in places like airports where people might just be passing through but there is hardly any big effort to accommodate every language out there. You put signs in the most common language and if that eventually changes then you change the sign. Language should follow the people, not the other way around.
Near a border is a an irrelevant legal distinction. You're in one region or the other. And you have to comply with the laws of that region. And yes, you should have to.
Even if those laws are morally wrong or economically stupid? Just because it is a law doesn't make it a good idea nor does it mean that you should automatically comply with a stupid and pointless law. Fight the good fight if it is worth fighting. I know plenty of businessmen (including some of my family) who refuse to do business in France because of the burden of this language law.
They want to defend their culture against the cultural imperialism of the US and their use of the English language.
Passing laws like this will not "defend their culture". It merely hurts them economically, makes them look stupid to the rest of the world, and at best delays the inevitable changes that will occur. Furthermore, the VAST majority of Canada (you know, the country they are part of) speaks English as their primary language so your argument that this has anything to do with the US is bogus on the face of it. Just because you speak a different or additional language doesn't mean your culture has to change in any significant way. They can still speak French all they want. But if people want to speak or otherwise communicate in a different language then that should be their prerogative. Not much of a democracy if you can't speak in your own voice with your own language.
How fucked up has the world become where everyone gets to decide what a store owner "needs to" do but the store owner.
Oh you mean we shouldn't require people to keep their storefront clear of trash? We shouldn't require them to pay their employees? How about we let them dump hazardous chemicals wherever they want? Look, this language law is stupid both morally and economically but let's not expand the stupidity by claiming that every requirement a business is subjected to is dumb. Some are very good ideas and others not so much. This language law falls into the not so much category.
What I'm confused by is why both France and Quebec are so damn defensive about their language. It's not anything special.
The mathematics of bitcoin are sound enough.
And you are a mathematician with an expertise in cryptography? You've looked at the code yourself to verify? You've examined peer reviewed literature which tests the encryption systems? You are somehow certain that the cryptography is immune from reasonably foreseeable technology and the math is bulletproof?
The issue I have with it is the possibility of hacks.
That is certainly the more immediate risk but hardly the only concern one ought to have with bitcoin.
This issue--my inability to know that my coins are secure--has made me reluctant to buy them in the past.
The reason I haven't bought any bitcoins is because I have no use for them. Bitcoin allows me to do nothing I can't already do, doesn't save me any money, nobody I know personally uses them, no companies I do business with accept them and I have little interest in speculating on something so unpredictably volatile. (I have the stock market for that) I also don't have any ideological issues with the dollar significant enough to make me want to use something else.
Wouldn't transferring some bitcoins from your phone be more convenient than bringing a selection of gold and silver coins whenever you plan to buy something?
Kind of a strawman argument. The real question is whether transferring bitcoins is more convenient than transferring dollars from my phone. Frankly I can't really think of any meaningful advantages to bitcoin compared with dollars especially once you account for all the costs and the risks.
You don't have to transfer actual gold, you can transfer a note backed by a bank or government that guarantees a fixed amount of gold. Such a note can be exchanged physically, or electronically if it's held by a reputable 3rd party (such as a bank or a government) under an account in one's name.
True but that causes problems with exchange rates over time and has a variety of significant and very real logistical problems.
OH WAIT I JUST DESCRIBED UNITED STATES DOLLARS ON THE GOLD STANDARD
Yes you did. What you did not describe is why it ultimately failed. The gold standard failed for some very good reasons. It limits economic growth because the supply of capital cannot grow (or shrink) with the economy. It eliminates monetary policy as a tool to mitigate recessions. It makes re-balancing exchange rates and currency devaluation problematic. There are all kinds of short term volatility problems. There are quite a few reasons why not a single country in the world uses the gold standard anymore.
Most of the people with large bitcoin fortunes are early adopters, and frankly why shouldn't early adopters be rewarded for taking a risk on something that ultimately may not pan out.
What risk? They "mined" some bitcoins by using some spare processor cycles on their PC and then convinced a bunch of folks that it was valuable currency. They exposed themselves to essentially zero financial risk aside from a bit of opportunity cost. At least to get a large pile of dollars you typically have to actually take some real risks unless you win the lottery.
Uh yeah, and speaking of history, perhaps we could bring back the Glass-Steagall Act that should have been left intact.
A form of that regulation has been put back in place though I agree Glass-Steagall never should have been messed with.
I find it comical that you think current monetary policy actually works.
It DOES work insofar as it is able. The problem is that monetary policy, while important, should not be relied upon exclusively to manage the economy - we need sensible fiscal policy too. Congress refuses do do much of anything (sane) regarding fiscal policy so the only tool we have in the bag right now is monetary policy which is significantly dictated by the Fed. We have the monetary policy we do because until congress actually does something, it is the best (and really only) option available. All the people who dislike the Fed really should be upset that congress has essentially abdicated their control of the economic policy of the US by their refusal to compromise and pass sane financial legislation.
Bitcoin has been gaining traction for a long time. Did you notice the run from $5 to $1200?
Beenie babies had a similar run a few years back. Eventually the bubble collapsed. No different here in all likelihood. And bitcoin hasn't been doing anything "for a long time". It's been around less than 5 years and there are VERY few things that go up 240X in 5 years that are based on sound economic fundamentals. It hasn't been around long enough for that to be possible. Just because something gains a lot in value in a (very) short amount of time, does not mean that it will sustain that valuation or that it is anything more than a fad. Come back to me in 20 years and we can talk about it "gaining traction for a long time".
Do You Still Trust Bitcoin?
I never trusted bitcoin in the first place. WAY too much risk and provides me precisely zero advantages for any financial transaction I'm likely to engage in.
Back when inflation was 10+% and US savings accounts were legally capped at 5.25%, you could put your money in a European bank and get real interest, but no insurance: "Eurodollars"
Right, but even then dollars were MUCH more stable currencies than bitcoin. If I were a bank I wouldn't touch bitcoin with a barge pole. There is a reason banks tend to avoid foreign currencies with high inflation or heavy volatility. Very hard to make money.
Banks fail far less frequently than home-made BtC exchanges in recent decades.
Umm, banks fail all the time. Much more often than most people are aware.
unfortunately we lack the material necessary for the "cables", at least in any manufacturable form.
That is just the tip of the iceberg of things we lack. The cables are just the most obvious missing technology. You need things like power, HVAC, orbital debris removal, meteor defense, terrorist defense systems, a base strong enough and heavy enough to hold on to it on both ends, elevator systems, servicing equipment, some way to actually construct the darn thing and equipment to do it, vastly more advanced robotics, and much much more. These things might be more mundane but they are no less important and all of it would have to be developed. Many of the problems are probably solvable but that doesn't make them trivial.
The space elevator can't seem to shake its image as something that's just ridiculous
Maybe because it IS ridiculous. It's a cool idea but it is science fiction and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
But there are plenty of scientists who take the idea quite seriously, and they're trying to buck that perception.
Plenty? No there aren't. We do not have the technology to build this and will not have said technology anytime soon. I know someone will say "but carbon nanotubes!" and they are still in the realm of science fiction when it comes to uses like this. Even if we did have the technology, the economic case for it is far from clear. This thing would be hugely expensive, potentially incredibly dangerous (imagine it breaking), requires technology we aren't even close to having, have an uncertain economic payback, be a target for terrorists, etc. Maybe in a few hundred years it will be possible but it isn't going to happen in the lifetime of anyone reading this.
To that end, a diverse group of experts at the behest of the International Academy of Astronautics completed an impressively thorough study this month...
Which you can buy in hardcover for just $29.95. Perhaps if they were really serious about it they might not be trying to sell the report for a profit.
They weren't always FDIC insured. Not too long ago they were not insured at all...
The FDIC has been around for 80 years. Strange definition of "not long ago" you have there.
so you would only put money in banks that you trusted.
It's a lot easier to trust a bank when it is backed by the taxing authority of the US government.
One day a bit coin exchange/bank may be FDIC (or similar) insured, but probably the whole thin will collapse first.
I think it is deeply unlikely that bitcoin will ever be backed by the US government or any similar institution.
Keep pushing the envelope to be cool and edgy and this is what you get.
Right. People running Windows are really concerned with being "cool and edgy".
So you can carry it around with you and take pictures with it.
Among other things. Being able to carry it around is a huge deal. Not sure why that fact seems to elude you.
Essentially you're paying $600 down and $40 a month for a camera that makes you think you're Johnny Sokko.
You can drop the smug attempt at acting cooler than the room. Nobody is impressed little hipster. I probably get more value out of my smartphone than I do out of my PC and my PC costs about the same once you account for the data plan. If it is worth the money to me then it is worth it. If your needs are different then do something that fits your needs.
Whatever spins your propeller. Just don't try to sell the idea that its a replacement for a PC, because it isn't and it never will be.
Who ever claimed a smartphone was a replacement for a PC? About the only place they overlap is for email and some web browsing.
The smartphone is inferior to the PC in almost every way:
Really? It fits in my pocket, lasts longer on battery than my laptop, it weighs (far) less, it is a phone, I can take pictures with it, it doesn't require a mouse or keyboard to be useful, I can use it to navigate places where I can't take a PC, I can take it places I would never take a PC, I don't have to worry (much) about malware, it wakes up instantly, I can run with it and listen to music while running, it has sensors like accelerometers that aren't very useful on a PC and certainly never are standard. "Inferior in every way"? Pul-leeeze.
BTW most of your points about why it is "worse" are either complete nonsense or only make sense if you foolishly think that a smartphone should be a PC. If you want to use a PC, go right ahead. No one is standing in your way.
(oh and if you're thinking of making some snarky "drink the cool-aid" remark, just go ahead and stuff it)
Elegance is always defined by the lack of complexity, not by the addition of it.
Not necessarily. You can have something that is both elegant and complex. It's just more difficult to pull off. While as a rule of thumb you are correct that simpler does more often result in something elegant, elegance is not defined by simplicity. The two are independent concepts.
That said I do tend to like Colin Chapman's philosophy of "simplify, then add lightness". Minimalism can be a very beautiful thing.
Which web sites work in Safari but fail in Chrome? I'm trying to consider whether to switch to a Mac or not.
Not many. Plus you can get Chrome for the Mac so it's not like you have to choose one or the other.
NYC used to be a very affordable place to live
Not in the last 40 years it hasn't been - not for anyplace I'd want to live anyway. Maybe if you lucked into a rent controlled apartment or something but affordable is not a word I would ever use to describe anything close to NYC. I almost moved out to NYC a few years back and shopped for houses on Long Island, Brooklyn and up towards White Plains. A very modest house cost 4X what it does out here in the midwest where I live now and I'm not even talking about places like Manhattan where the cost per square foot goes into the stratosphere. A house that would cost around $100K here costs around $400K anywhere close to NYC.
and now Manhattan is probably the safest city (or city portion, and definitely downtown area) in America.
You're going to have to provide a LOT of data to back that assertion up. Manhattan is like any big city downtown area with the same features and dangers. I can think of plenty of cities where I would feel more safe than Manhattan. Crime has obviously fallen in NYC but "safest city in America"? Color me dubious.
Would you similarly suggest that diamonds are worthless if your neighborhood jeweler got robbed?
Do you store your diamonds at your neighborhood jeweler? Do you try to pay people for things in diamonds? Do you use diamonds as a currency? Care to try for a better analogy?
The US financial system is not a safe place for your money.
Right, that's why the world regards it as the safest place for their money and the dollar is the world's reserve currency. Need evidence? All you have to do is look at the popularity of treasury bonds. If the dollar was regarded as unsafe the US government would have to pay a LOT more interest than they do. The only people who actually believe what you claim are those who hide their money in a tin can in the back yard.
I was referring to the parent post who said "deactivates and wipes EVERY PHONE", which would not be very useful.
That would be VERY useful to someone who wants to interfere with first responders, or for governments that want to suppress free speech, nation states that want to cause problems for other countries, or for malicious assholes who just want to be pricks. There is profit to be made and almost every malicious activity is useful to someone.
Incidentally, most MDs are flattering themselves when they think the work they are doing requires a lot of intelligence.
Well I'm married to an MD so I know this situation well and you are both right and wrong. Most people who go through medical school are REALLY good at absorbing and regurgitating large amounts of data. It's what makes them really good students and a significant part of their job is to be a walking database of medical information. They need to know a LOT of information and have it on instant recall to do their job well. They are however someone mixed in their ability to analyze that data. Some are really good, some not so much though very few are actually bad at it. Being able to analyze data is a huge asset in the actual practice of medicine not to mention the research that many of them do. It doesn't matter much for the more routine stuff but it matters a lot for more difficult cases. When you are near the edge of medical knowledge or the information is unclear a database isn't nearly as much help. At that point you have to reason through what is going on and something like Watson is typically of less value.
A disturbing amount of medical diagnosis is frankly guesswork or opinions. There are diseases that we don't really understand the causes of completely (like melanoma) and diagnosing these has no clear and universal criteria. Also people don't always share (intentionally and not) all relevant information. Essentially you are making an educated guess about how a tumor might behave in the future based on imperfect information.
The place where systems like Watson are most useful is in making (more) complete differentials. Given a list of symptoms there is a list of potential disease processes. Some of the more unusual ones are pretty easy to overlook and doctors do this routinely (not on purpose) because they might not know or might forget about some uncommon disease they rarely or never see. If you live in the midwest USA, you probably aren't really worried about malaria and it's pretty unlikely you'll see it. Most of the time it doesn't matter but when it does it really matters. However, it is virtually impossible for a database to get the whole picture. There are bits of information that don't fit neatly into a database table and even the ones that do cannot be entered fast enough to be useful.