They are concerned enough to spend money on the warning system, but have they spent the money on enough bunkers to hold the population of the islands? Are they located so that everyone has a reasonable chance of getting to one regardless of traffic/panic of everyone else trying to get there?
A reasonable question with and unfortunately unreasonable answer. You have to weigh the costs of providing such shelter against the likely benefits. Odds are you'll find that building and maintaining such shelters is too costly to justify even presuming they would work as intended. (and it's not clear how useful such shelters would be) Folks in Hawaii are thinking about the problem seriously but the answers aren't simple ones.
While it was certainly a bone headed mistake, it was one what was easily possible for someone in a hurry. As this fellow was just wrapping up his shift, he was clearly trying to get everything done in time.
It this was indeed the setup the mistake was idiotic programming and software design. The end user screwing it up was entirely predictable and probably inevitable. The problem occurred when the system was designed. If a system can fail because of the design, it almost certainly will fail sooner or later.
Part of my day job is to write work instructions and design procedures. When something goes wrong the first question I have to ask is "what did I do wrong", NOT "who screwed up"? 90+% of the time the problem was unclear/wrong/misleading instructions, a badly designed process, or some other problem where the person tasked with carrying out the instructions was set up to fail. In other words, my fault. We as engineers tend to take too little responsibility for our own failures and blame user error when in fact the error was a badly designed program or procedure. We tend to think we are the smartest people in the room and while that may be true sometimes it doesn't mean we are perfect.
In what is being called a landmark moment for natural language processing, Alibaba and Microsoft have developed AIs that can outperform humans on a reading and comprehension test.
WHICH humans? I know people that my dog can probably outperform on a reading test. If this is basically a lookup contest ala Watson on Jeopardy, that's not really reading comprehension. That's an expert system doing what they are designed to do. It's only AI in the most rudimentary form.
The red state vs. blue state comparison is flawed because there are no purely red or blue states.
Nobody argued to the contrary. But as long as presidential elections maintain an electoral college with a winner take all system there will remain such a thing as red states and blue states whether you like it or not and regardless of what the underlying demographics might be.
Democrats are TWICE as likely as Republicans to have taken food stamps.
Did you actually read the article you linked to? From your article: "But when the political lens shifts from partisanship to ideology, the participation gap vanishes. Self-described political conservatives were no more likely than liberals or moderates to have received food stamps (17% for each group),"
You complain that I'm ignoring underlying demographics and then you do the exact same thing. The gap you point to is entirely explained by the fact that it is MINORITIES (non-whites) and WOMEN who are more likely to receive assistance. These groups happen to generally vote Democrat. Again from TFA: "Beyond politics, equally large or larger gaps emerge in the participation rates of many core social and demographic groups. For example, women were about twice as likely as men (23% vs. 12%) to have received food stamps at some point in their lives. Blacks are about twice as likely as whites to have used this benefit during their lives (31% vs. 15%). Among Hispanics, about 22% say they have collected food stamps."
Most of the welfare recipients are white people in red counties within CA, actually. It's weird how much you hate them.
Most of the states that depend most heavily on federal aid are strongly red states. Most of those that depend the least on the government are blue states. Make of that what you will but I think there is some irony in there somewhere.
A 3rd of this country's welfare recipients are in California.
That's a nice little unsupported bogus made up statistic you have there. California does spend the most on welfare overall but since they are the state with the largest population (and a high cost of living) that's hardly shocking. Per capita they are high but not wildly out of the norm - with around 4% of the population receiving some sort of assistance. California is among the least federally dependent states in the US.
It has been losing population for the last 20 years
You must be talking about a different California than the one on the west coast of the US. Population growth there has been steadily growing with no sign of that changing any time soon.
Compared to pretty much every other commonly used method of getting fresh water. Hard to compete with simply pumping it from a freshwater lake/river or from an aquifer for cost. Even aqueducts and reservoirs take a lot less energy to manage.
A typical desktop PC can consume 125 watts average power consumption, so less than a day of the PC sitting there turned on can provide a cubic meter (264 gallons).
Apples to oranges my friend. Pumping ground water takes FAR less energy.
Desalination is a problem for large-scale use; it's highly energy intensive, and you're left with hypersaline brine, which is environmentally destructive.
All true though running out of water is a rather more acute problem than energy use or toxic byproducts.
3rd rule of internet security: Do not hire morons who will plug a memory stick into a unit that's not on the net, after that stick has been in a unit that is on the net.
Not possible. If you don't want a memory stick plugged in then you will have to physically remove access. Even smart people with the best of intentions make mistakes or sometimes are duped.
4th rule of internet security: Disable any wireless connectivity on systems you are not intentionally hooking to the net.
Wireless (and wired) connectivity systems should be disabled by default and require positive action to enable. End users should not have the rights to enable this functionality.
5th rule of internet security: Do not hire anybody who would violate the preceeding four rules.
And how do you propose to identify these people ahead of time since they don't carry Bill Engvall I'm stupid signs.
This is called Bitcoin breaking. That doesn't mean it's irreparably broken though.... it just means BTC is broken for now and currently isn't offering the main advantage that should incentivize merchants adopting it.... IMO They should consider Litecoin instead.
There isn't a single cryptocurrency that has an economic (cost) advantage over the dollar (or euro, or yen, or...) with basically one exception. The one exception is for illegal activities (drugs, money laundering, etc) where the costs of getting caught outweigh the higher transaction fees. This is why it's attractive to those who would prefer to avoid attracting attention. For run of the mill normal transactions the cost of bitcoin is significantly and measurably higher. And as long as there is no economic advantage then there is literally zero chance of any of them becoming more than niche toy currency. People ultimately will go where the economic advantage is and that simply isn't with bitcoin at the end of the day.
Frankly I have yet to see a cryptocurrency that I don't think is a pyramid scheme or at least a boondoggle. But even giving them the benefit of the doubt on that score they still have markedly higher transaction costs particularly if we honestly consider the risks involved. I don't have a principled objection to them per-se but most of the arguments in favor of them are either foolish ideological ones or naive economic ones that belie a grave misunderstanding of how financial systems actually work. I think the really interesting thing about them isn't the currency (those are a boondoggle) but the blockchain technology which has potentially wide spread applications in a variety of venues which require a chain of custody.
Decentralization makes the system harder to attack.
That is such a generic statement as to render it meaningless. What attack specifically do you so earnestly believe decentralization will protect you from? Having to pay taxes? Cops busting you for dealing drugs?
That is a practical benefit that has nothing to do with ideology.
You gave a hand wave blanket assertion about security without any corroborating evidence. Not a single practical non-hypothetical benefit in evidence.
Decentralization is not a useful end unto itself. It's a mechanism not an end. There has to be an economic reason to want to decentralize that reduces costs. You could argue that having a centralized currency adds to the cost of a fiat currency but then decentralization isn't the goal, just the mechanism to the real goal which is to reduce costs. If a currency is more expensive to use then it will get used less. Whether it is centralized or not matters not at all except to those who are motivated primarily by ideology. People that work in finance do not routinely fit that description.
If we could somehow create magical impenetrable *physical* fortresses that cannot be opened or accessed by the duly-empowered law enforcement and judicial powers of a democratic society, would we say that's just the way it is?
We would have to. Total strawman you have there but I'll roll with it. To make it tangible the laws of mathematics are not bendable for the convenience of some and not others. Once encryption is broken by one party, it is a trivial exercise to break it for an arbitrary number of other parties or to simply distribute the data being protected. Once you have one key it's cheap and easy to make copies of the key and much more expensive to replace the locks. And once the data is taken there is no point since that would be like locking the door after the thief has already run off with your stuff.
There is no one "right" answer to a question like this save the ones we collectively and imperfectly come to as a society.
Actually there is a right answer here and air quotes are not needed. Your options are either to use encryption properly to keep data secure or to not use it at all and live with the consequences. There literally is no middle ground. Weak encryption or backdoored encryption = no encryption.
Apple believes it is protecting freedom. It's wrong. Here's why:
That article is a complete load of nonsense. The author is either an idiot or has an agenda. His arguments are flawed to their core. The argument is basically that bad guys are lazy and won't be bothered to take advantage of government mandated back doors. That argument is so stupid I barely know were to begin.
Bitcoin settlement times, and the fee market associated with transactions, have become a hot topic these days as on-chain fees have risen to $30-60 per transaction.
Also ironic given that the initial justification for bitcoin was to minimize transaction fees. It's why I've been arguing that the notion that bitcoin has an economic advantage is a false economy.
Says the addict who probably still stops to fill up their car several times a month.
Do you have a better option for transportation than subsidized fossil fuel powered vehicles? No you do not. And why do we only have the one option? Because we subsidize fossil fuels directly to the tune of around $5 trillion per year globally and considerably more indirectly in the pollution we allow to be emitted without cost.
You know climate change is real, but you still have a gas powered car, burn natural gas to heat your home and probably to cook with, and chances are good the electricity you are using to type comments on Slashdot doesn't come from solar or wind...
Grow up. What I do individually doesn't make any meaningful difference. At all. The only way to fight climate change in a meaningful way is with regulations at the nation state level. You pretend otherwise at all of our peril. Your lame attempt to paint me as a hypocrite might have some bite if there was actually another realistic option beside subsidized fossil fuels. Solar only seems expensive because coal and gas don't have to pay for the pollution they cause. Seriously smart guy, explain to me how we transition the general public off of fossil fuel power without taxing the heck out of it and removing both direct and indirect subsidies.
Oh and for the record I actually do have solar panels on my house, I pay for renewable generated power on my electric bill and my wife drives a hybrid that requires zero gas for her daily commute. As soon as there is an option that makes sense I will happily drop my daily driver for an EV. I've replaced every light bulb in my house with LEDs, my water heater is tankless so I don't burn gas needlessly, and I have recently installed a high efficiency furnace and upgraded insulation. While I recognize that none of this will move the needle on climate change, I'm doing my part anyway. And in some cases it actually saves me money which is a nice bonus.
We at the FBI are a bunch of lazy twats who regard the constitution as a piece of toilet paper if it makes our job harder. We also know perfectly well that any backdoor in encrypted software makes the encryption worthless but pretend otherwise in public because we only care about ourselves.
Basically either this guy is evil or an idiot and I'm pretty sure someone at the FBI understands how encryption works so I'm favoring evil. Either way it isn't a good situation for our civil right to have the cops demanding a master key to everyone's (figurative) house.
Agreed though not all of them are politically viable. The likely best way would be a significant global tax on all carbon and other emissions from burning fossil fuels. But that probably won't happen. Cap and trade is another option but not as good as a tax. Lawsuits are a third option which might be among the most politically viable just because it doesn't require widespread agreement. Regulations limiting emissions and increasing efficiency standards are another but are less effective than a tax in many cases and expensive to enforce. And technology changes like electric vehicles can also make a big impact.
Why sue gas company instead of the car owner burning the gas?
For the same reason you don't waste money trying to put someone in jail for smoking a joint. It's wasteful and doesn't solve the problem to go after the end user when it is the dealer that matters. The gas company is the one with the money and they are the source of the problem. They lied (and continue to lie) about their research into the problem of climate change and because they are the ones reaping monstrous profits in significant part by dumping massive amounts of CO2 and various pollutants into the atmosphere free of charge. Right now fossil fuel companies do not have to pay for the full cost of the pollution they generate effectively providing them a subsidy to the tune of literally trillions of dollars annually across the globe. A subsidy we pay through various health problems, environmental damage, and the effects of climate change. There are numerous ways this de-facto subsidy could be ended and lawsuits like this are among the options. Maybe not the best option but it might be the best available option.
Basically it's kind of a version of suing tobacco companies for the health problems and associated costs their products cause. And the fossil fuel industry lies about the negative impact of their products to protect their profits just like the tobacco companies did (and do) to protect their profits.
Make no sense, this is just further bizarre social justice
No, it's recouping the cost to the rest of us for the pollution they create. You talk about wanting people to pay for the problems they cause as if it is somehow a bad thing.
Yelp is still what people actually use if they want real info.
I've never gotten much useful information from Yelp. Yes there are reviews but I've never found the to have a strong correlation with my own experiences at the locations being reviewed. Basically I no longer waste any time looking at Yelp for opinions.
You've been here long enough to know that this has never been just a technical nerd news site. And if you cannot find the reasons why this is news that matters they you are simply just not using your brain.
No, it is not. To disenfranchise is to deny the very right to vote. From your own link:
A vote rendered meaningless by gerrymandering IS denying the right to vote for all practical purposes. The fact that I technically cast a ballot in a heavily gerrymandered district effectively denies my voice from being heard - i.e. the entire point of a vote. That is disenfranchisement. If you want to call it something else fine but the effect is identical to armed thugs stopping me from casting my ballot in the first place.
My vote in New York is meaningless, for example, but I am not disenfranchised.
That depends on where in New York you live but since Democrats naturally outnumber Republicans in the state you are correct for statewide offices. But if you live in a gerrymandered district then you possibly are disenfranchised for purposes of congressional election. My congressional district is gerrymandered and I definitely have been disenfranchised for purposes of that vote. You cannot gerrymander for state wide office if the votes are cast by popular vote but for any district with boundaries drawn by partisan hacks you easily can disenfranchise people. The fact that they actually cast a ballot doesn't make any difference in whether or not they have been disenfranchised because the effect is identical to preventing them from casting a ballot.
You are arguing semantics — incorrectly.
You have that backwards and even if it were just semantics, semantics matter. Gerrymandering renders votes meaningless that otherwise would not be meaningless. If you want to call that something other than disenfranchisement I don't care but the effect is identical. It makes the election rigged which is wrong.
Gerrymandering has been an issue since the start of the Republic.
True but it's only been relatively recently that the parties have tried to basically weaponize it to an extreme degree. The Republicans in particular have been quite effective at utilizing it to their benefit. I don't doubt the Democrats would do so too but I think they just got beaten to the punch. Gerrymandering to my mind is one of the greatest threats to our democracy and plays a very large role in the shifts of both parties (particularly the republicans) to extreme candidates.
And just because it's always been an issue doesn't mean it should not be dealt with. Gerrymandering cannot go away fast enough.
Which has been highly unfavorable to the GOP party even though it was initially promoted by the GOP in California.
That has a lot to do with the fact that Democrats outnumber Republicans rather heavily in California. You'd have a hard time drawing a set of districts which would result in a Republican majority in that state. The California system might not be perfect but it's a lot better than the one in my state.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Political affiliation isn't a protect class.
No but the right to vote and to have your vote count IS protected. Don't confuse the mechanism with the result. Gerrymandering doesn't just affect members of a given political party.
To insist that the redistricting somehow represents the greater population is the usurpation of redistricting task by the courts.
Not even slightly. Courts are the only (ostensibly) neutral party here and their job is to ensure that voters rights are not trod upon. I'm not a member of either the republicans or democrats but I live in a gerrymandered district and so my right to vote is de-facto disenfranchised if I happen to not like the ruling party's candidate. That is a perfect use for a court to protect people like me who otherwise would effectively lose their vote.
Slashdot Mirror
Force people to think.
HA! Good luck with that. In my experience far too many people will fight tooth and nail to not have to engage their brains.
They are concerned enough to spend money on the warning system, but have they spent the money on enough bunkers to hold the population of the islands? Are they located so that everyone has a reasonable chance of getting to one regardless of traffic/panic of everyone else trying to get there?
A reasonable question with and unfortunately unreasonable answer. You have to weigh the costs of providing such shelter against the likely benefits. Odds are you'll find that building and maintaining such shelters is too costly to justify even presuming they would work as intended. (and it's not clear how useful such shelters would be) Folks in Hawaii are thinking about the problem seriously but the answers aren't simple ones.
While it was certainly a bone headed mistake, it was one what was easily possible for someone in a hurry. As this fellow was just wrapping up his shift, he was clearly trying to get everything done in time.
It this was indeed the setup the mistake was idiotic programming and software design. The end user screwing it up was entirely predictable and probably inevitable. The problem occurred when the system was designed. If a system can fail because of the design, it almost certainly will fail sooner or later.
Part of my day job is to write work instructions and design procedures. When something goes wrong the first question I have to ask is "what did I do wrong", NOT "who screwed up"? 90+% of the time the problem was unclear/wrong/misleading instructions, a badly designed process, or some other problem where the person tasked with carrying out the instructions was set up to fail. In other words, my fault. We as engineers tend to take too little responsibility for our own failures and blame user error when in fact the error was a badly designed program or procedure. We tend to think we are the smartest people in the room and while that may be true sometimes it doesn't mean we are perfect.
In what is being called a landmark moment for natural language processing, Alibaba and Microsoft have developed AIs that can outperform humans on a reading and comprehension test.
WHICH humans? I know people that my dog can probably outperform on a reading test. If this is basically a lookup contest ala Watson on Jeopardy, that's not really reading comprehension. That's an expert system doing what they are designed to do. It's only AI in the most rudimentary form.
The red state vs. blue state comparison is flawed because there are no purely red or blue states.
Nobody argued to the contrary. But as long as presidential elections maintain an electoral college with a winner take all system there will remain such a thing as red states and blue states whether you like it or not and regardless of what the underlying demographics might be.
Democrats are TWICE as likely as Republicans to have taken food stamps.
Did you actually read the article you linked to? From your article: "But when the political lens shifts from partisanship to ideology, the participation gap vanishes. Self-described political conservatives were no more likely than liberals or moderates to have received food stamps (17% for each group),"
You complain that I'm ignoring underlying demographics and then you do the exact same thing. The gap you point to is entirely explained by the fact that it is MINORITIES (non-whites) and WOMEN who are more likely to receive assistance. These groups happen to generally vote Democrat. Again from TFA: "Beyond politics, equally large or larger gaps emerge in the participation rates of many core social and demographic groups. For example, women were about twice as likely as men (23% vs. 12%) to have received food stamps at some point in their lives. Blacks are about twice as likely as whites to have used this benefit during their lives (31% vs. 15%). Among Hispanics, about 22% say they have collected food stamps."
California used to be 4th until the Democrats took over. Go ahead, prove me wrong.
You made the claim. It's up to you to back it up with facts.
Most of the welfare recipients are white people in red counties within CA, actually. It's weird how much you hate them.
Most of the states that depend most heavily on federal aid are strongly red states. Most of those that depend the least on the government are blue states. Make of that what you will but I think there is some irony in there somewhere.
A 3rd of this country's welfare recipients are in California.
That's a nice little unsupported bogus made up statistic you have there. California does spend the most on welfare overall but since they are the state with the largest population (and a high cost of living) that's hardly shocking. Per capita they are high but not wildly out of the norm - with around 4% of the population receiving some sort of assistance. California is among the least federally dependent states in the US.
It has been losing population for the last 20 years
You must be talking about a different California than the one on the west coast of the US. Population growth there has been steadily growing with no sign of that changing any time soon.
Highly-energy intensive, compared to what?
Compared to pretty much every other commonly used method of getting fresh water. Hard to compete with simply pumping it from a freshwater lake/river or from an aquifer for cost. Even aqueducts and reservoirs take a lot less energy to manage.
A typical desktop PC can consume 125 watts average power consumption, so less than a day of the PC sitting there turned on can provide a cubic meter (264 gallons).
Apples to oranges my friend. Pumping ground water takes FAR less energy.
Desalination is a problem for large-scale use; it's highly energy intensive, and you're left with hypersaline brine, which is environmentally destructive.
All true though running out of water is a rather more acute problem than energy use or toxic byproducts.
3rd rule of internet security: Do not hire morons who will plug a memory stick into a unit that's not on the net, after that stick has been in a unit that is on the net.
Not possible. If you don't want a memory stick plugged in then you will have to physically remove access. Even smart people with the best of intentions make mistakes or sometimes are duped.
4th rule of internet security: Disable any wireless connectivity on systems you are not intentionally hooking to the net.
Wireless (and wired) connectivity systems should be disabled by default and require positive action to enable. End users should not have the rights to enable this functionality.
5th rule of internet security: Do not hire anybody who would violate the preceeding four rules.
And how do you propose to identify these people ahead of time since they don't carry Bill Engvall I'm stupid signs.
This is called Bitcoin breaking. That doesn't mean it's irreparably broken though.... it just means BTC is broken for now and currently isn't offering the main advantage that should incentivize merchants adopting it.... IMO They should consider Litecoin instead.
There isn't a single cryptocurrency that has an economic (cost) advantage over the dollar (or euro, or yen, or...) with basically one exception. The one exception is for illegal activities (drugs, money laundering, etc) where the costs of getting caught outweigh the higher transaction fees. This is why it's attractive to those who would prefer to avoid attracting attention. For run of the mill normal transactions the cost of bitcoin is significantly and measurably higher. And as long as there is no economic advantage then there is literally zero chance of any of them becoming more than niche toy currency. People ultimately will go where the economic advantage is and that simply isn't with bitcoin at the end of the day.
Frankly I have yet to see a cryptocurrency that I don't think is a pyramid scheme or at least a boondoggle. But even giving them the benefit of the doubt on that score they still have markedly higher transaction costs particularly if we honestly consider the risks involved. I don't have a principled objection to them per-se but most of the arguments in favor of them are either foolish ideological ones or naive economic ones that belie a grave misunderstanding of how financial systems actually work. I think the really interesting thing about them isn't the currency (those are a boondoggle) but the blockchain technology which has potentially wide spread applications in a variety of venues which require a chain of custody.
I beg to differ.
Ok, beg. ;-)
Decentralization makes the system harder to attack.
That is such a generic statement as to render it meaningless. What attack specifically do you so earnestly believe decentralization will protect you from? Having to pay taxes? Cops busting you for dealing drugs?
That is a practical benefit that has nothing to do with ideology.
You gave a hand wave blanket assertion about security without any corroborating evidence. Not a single practical non-hypothetical benefit in evidence.
Initial justification is decentralization.
Decentralization is not a useful end unto itself. It's a mechanism not an end. There has to be an economic reason to want to decentralize that reduces costs. You could argue that having a centralized currency adds to the cost of a fiat currency but then decentralization isn't the goal, just the mechanism to the real goal which is to reduce costs. If a currency is more expensive to use then it will get used less. Whether it is centralized or not matters not at all except to those who are motivated primarily by ideology. People that work in finance do not routinely fit that description.
If we could somehow create magical impenetrable *physical* fortresses that cannot be opened or accessed by the duly-empowered law enforcement and judicial powers of a democratic society, would we say that's just the way it is?
We would have to. Total strawman you have there but I'll roll with it. To make it tangible the laws of mathematics are not bendable for the convenience of some and not others. Once encryption is broken by one party, it is a trivial exercise to break it for an arbitrary number of other parties or to simply distribute the data being protected. Once you have one key it's cheap and easy to make copies of the key and much more expensive to replace the locks. And once the data is taken there is no point since that would be like locking the door after the thief has already run off with your stuff.
There is no one "right" answer to a question like this save the ones we collectively and imperfectly come to as a society.
Actually there is a right answer here and air quotes are not needed. Your options are either to use encryption properly to keep data secure or to not use it at all and live with the consequences. There literally is no middle ground. Weak encryption or backdoored encryption = no encryption.
Apple believes it is protecting freedom. It's wrong. Here's why:
That article is a complete load of nonsense. The author is either an idiot or has an agenda. His arguments are flawed to their core. The argument is basically that bad guys are lazy and won't be bothered to take advantage of government mandated back doors. That argument is so stupid I barely know were to begin.
Bitcoin settlement times, and the fee market associated with transactions, have become a hot topic these days as on-chain fees have risen to $30-60 per transaction.
Also ironic given that the initial justification for bitcoin was to minimize transaction fees. It's why I've been arguing that the notion that bitcoin has an economic advantage is a false economy.
Says the addict who probably still stops to fill up their car several times a month.
Do you have a better option for transportation than subsidized fossil fuel powered vehicles? No you do not. And why do we only have the one option? Because we subsidize fossil fuels directly to the tune of around $5 trillion per year globally and considerably more indirectly in the pollution we allow to be emitted without cost.
You know climate change is real, but you still have a gas powered car, burn natural gas to heat your home and probably to cook with, and chances are good the electricity you are using to type comments on Slashdot doesn't come from solar or wind...
Grow up. What I do individually doesn't make any meaningful difference. At all. The only way to fight climate change in a meaningful way is with regulations at the nation state level. You pretend otherwise at all of our peril. Your lame attempt to paint me as a hypocrite might have some bite if there was actually another realistic option beside subsidized fossil fuels. Solar only seems expensive because coal and gas don't have to pay for the pollution they cause. Seriously smart guy, explain to me how we transition the general public off of fossil fuel power without taxing the heck out of it and removing both direct and indirect subsidies.
Oh and for the record I actually do have solar panels on my house, I pay for renewable generated power on my electric bill and my wife drives a hybrid that requires zero gas for her daily commute. As soon as there is an option that makes sense I will happily drop my daily driver for an EV. I've replaced every light bulb in my house with LEDs, my water heater is tankless so I don't burn gas needlessly, and I have recently installed a high efficiency furnace and upgraded insulation. While I recognize that none of this will move the needle on climate change, I'm doing my part anyway. And in some cases it actually saves me money which is a nice bonus.
We at the FBI are a bunch of lazy twats who regard the constitution as a piece of toilet paper if it makes our job harder. We also know perfectly well that any backdoor in encrypted software makes the encryption worthless but pretend otherwise in public because we only care about ourselves.
Basically either this guy is evil or an idiot and I'm pretty sure someone at the FBI understands how encryption works so I'm favoring evil. Either way it isn't a good situation for our civil right to have the cops demanding a master key to everyone's (figurative) house.
There are many ways to offset the pollution.
Agreed though not all of them are politically viable. The likely best way would be a significant global tax on all carbon and other emissions from burning fossil fuels. But that probably won't happen. Cap and trade is another option but not as good as a tax. Lawsuits are a third option which might be among the most politically viable just because it doesn't require widespread agreement. Regulations limiting emissions and increasing efficiency standards are another but are less effective than a tax in many cases and expensive to enforce. And technology changes like electric vehicles can also make a big impact.
Why sue gas company instead of the car owner burning the gas?
For the same reason you don't waste money trying to put someone in jail for smoking a joint. It's wasteful and doesn't solve the problem to go after the end user when it is the dealer that matters. The gas company is the one with the money and they are the source of the problem. They lied (and continue to lie) about their research into the problem of climate change and because they are the ones reaping monstrous profits in significant part by dumping massive amounts of CO2 and various pollutants into the atmosphere free of charge. Right now fossil fuel companies do not have to pay for the full cost of the pollution they generate effectively providing them a subsidy to the tune of literally trillions of dollars annually across the globe. A subsidy we pay through various health problems, environmental damage, and the effects of climate change. There are numerous ways this de-facto subsidy could be ended and lawsuits like this are among the options. Maybe not the best option but it might be the best available option.
Basically it's kind of a version of suing tobacco companies for the health problems and associated costs their products cause. And the fossil fuel industry lies about the negative impact of their products to protect their profits just like the tobacco companies did (and do) to protect their profits.
Make no sense, this is just further bizarre social justice
No, it's recouping the cost to the rest of us for the pollution they create. You talk about wanting people to pay for the problems they cause as if it is somehow a bad thing.
I don't have the time. Is there a version of the Louis Rossman videos where he doesn't spent 45 minutes talking about a 2 minute topic?
You are posting to slashdot so obviously you do have the time and are just being lazy.
Yelp is still what people actually use if they want real info.
I've never gotten much useful information from Yelp. Yes there are reviews but I've never found the to have a strong correlation with my own experiences at the locations being reviewed. Basically I no longer waste any time looking at Yelp for opinions.
Not on a technical nerd news site it doesn't.
You've been here long enough to know that this has never been just a technical nerd news site. And if you cannot find the reasons why this is news that matters they you are simply just not using your brain.
No, it is not. To disenfranchise is to deny the very right to vote. From your own link:
A vote rendered meaningless by gerrymandering IS denying the right to vote for all practical purposes. The fact that I technically cast a ballot in a heavily gerrymandered district effectively denies my voice from being heard - i.e. the entire point of a vote. That is disenfranchisement. If you want to call it something else fine but the effect is identical to armed thugs stopping me from casting my ballot in the first place.
My vote in New York is meaningless, for example, but I am not disenfranchised.
That depends on where in New York you live but since Democrats naturally outnumber Republicans in the state you are correct for statewide offices. But if you live in a gerrymandered district then you possibly are disenfranchised for purposes of congressional election. My congressional district is gerrymandered and I definitely have been disenfranchised for purposes of that vote. You cannot gerrymander for state wide office if the votes are cast by popular vote but for any district with boundaries drawn by partisan hacks you easily can disenfranchise people. The fact that they actually cast a ballot doesn't make any difference in whether or not they have been disenfranchised because the effect is identical to preventing them from casting a ballot.
You are arguing semantics — incorrectly.
You have that backwards and even if it were just semantics, semantics matter. Gerrymandering renders votes meaningless that otherwise would not be meaningless. If you want to call that something other than disenfranchisement I don't care but the effect is identical. It makes the election rigged which is wrong.
Gerrymandering has been an issue since the start of the Republic.
True but it's only been relatively recently that the parties have tried to basically weaponize it to an extreme degree. The Republicans in particular have been quite effective at utilizing it to their benefit. I don't doubt the Democrats would do so too but I think they just got beaten to the punch. Gerrymandering to my mind is one of the greatest threats to our democracy and plays a very large role in the shifts of both parties (particularly the republicans) to extreme candidates.
And just because it's always been an issue doesn't mean it should not be dealt with. Gerrymandering cannot go away fast enough.
Which has been highly unfavorable to the GOP party even though it was initially promoted by the GOP in California.
That has a lot to do with the fact that Democrats outnumber Republicans rather heavily in California. You'd have a hard time drawing a set of districts which would result in a Republican majority in that state. The California system might not be perfect but it's a lot better than the one in my state.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Political affiliation isn't a protect class.
No but the right to vote and to have your vote count IS protected. Don't confuse the mechanism with the result. Gerrymandering doesn't just affect members of a given political party.
To insist that the redistricting somehow represents the greater population is the usurpation of redistricting task by the courts.
Not even slightly. Courts are the only (ostensibly) neutral party here and their job is to ensure that voters rights are not trod upon. I'm not a member of either the republicans or democrats but I live in a gerrymandered district and so my right to vote is de-facto disenfranchised if I happen to not like the ruling party's candidate. That is a perfect use for a court to protect people like me who otherwise would effectively lose their vote.