If I would go by car from Karlsruhe to Paris, 450km is about 45EUR for fuel and about 90EUR road tolls and 5:30h trip (train is 2:30h).
That doesn't really tell me whether road or rail transportation is better, only that in Europe, it's public policy to discourage car use (for better or worse).
Gas in the US is currently $2.50 a gallon. An economy car* will get 40 MPG, which means the 450 km (270 mi) drive will cost about $17.50 in gas. Freeways are free to use, so all that's left is the car's maintenance costs, which is about $0.07 a mile for an economy car, adding another $20 for the trip. In total that's $37.50, or 30 EUR. Americans will also drive at or above 70 mph, so the trip would only take 4 hours instead of 5:30.
If the US started collecting a very high toll, I imagine it could become more convenient to travel by rail than car, but there's no reason that needs to happen. The US government currently spends less on freeways ($69 billion) than the top 10 countries in Europe do on rail ($80 billion combined).
*An economy car in the US is something like a Ford Focus or Toyota Corolla, which can seat 5 people.
I'm personally skeptical that we can actually teach a machine to distinguish between "clean" and "sanitised" surfaces within the foreseeable future.
Why would it need to do that? Does a car wash check how clean your car is before washing it?
I can foresee a solution where the cooking robots are disassembled and cleaned on a completely automated and a regular basis e.g. they get cleaned three times day.
It doesn't have to be automated, a human is probably cheaper in the near term and they can wash the robots in several different stores in a day. They'll go from needing 2 or 3 full-time employees per store to 1/3rd or 1/4th of an employee per store.
Sure, it'll only take 20 years to settle all of the environmental protection lawsuits, then another 20 to settle all the "blocked view" suits from the property owners.
While I agree with you on the minimal effect of emigration, that doesn't refute GP's point that red tape is holding California back. Without red tape, perhaps California could have a bigger economy than all but one nation in the world.
...if we are past the tipping point like they say, then it's effectively over anyway, so what I do doesn't significantly matter.
There's slipping and falling in the water, and then there's refusing to tread water after falling in. The first is an unfortunate accident. The second deserves a Darwin Award.
Since the cars were occupied, that would be assault with a deadly weapon. Of course, if really it were in Texas, the passenger probably has an AR-15 and wouldn't need to wait for the police to show up to send the dumbass to kingdom come.
Interestingly for teachers, it'll be those that teach the youngest kids that who are the hardest to automate, since kindergarteners need an adult human to keep them in check, where as college students can study almost as well from a video of the professor as the professor in the flesh.
Though if you're really worried, you could try to become a software engineer specializing in automation. That or prostitution I guess.
Meanwhile there are countries without the 2nd that have defended themselves from tyranny with militias and armed people (no reason the people can't be armed without a 2nd amendment, just means you can stop mentally unbalanced people or former crooks from owning arms...)
The 2nd amendment doesn't go into that much detail. You can certainly interpret it to have psychiatric limitations or training requirements. But the problem is, you need to create a process for determining who can and cannot be trusted with a gun, and the process cannot be subverted or controlled by the government.
Right now it's impossible to tell whether the existence of the 2nd had prevented the rise of tyrannical rulers. Maybe just by creating the possibility of an armed revolt, it made oppressive rule unthinkable. But maybe oppression didn't happen other reasons, such as the 1st amendment or the separation of powers. Or maybe we just haven't been around long enough to see it play out. Some of the other democracies already have such problems (e.g. Russia, Turkey, Venezuela, Iran...).
Despite my uncertainty in the role of the 2nd however, I do believe the entirety of the Bill of Rights is preventing the US from being ruled by a dictator. Maybe getting rid of the 2nd by itself isn't a big deal, but it's like taking out pieces of a car. Some, or even most components aren't critical to its continuous operation, but if you keep it up, eventually you'll remove a critical component, and the whole thing will come crashing down.
41% still make less than minimum wage. That drives my wages down (and yours too). These Uber drivers aren't dumb, they're desperate and unlucky. They know they're getting screwed and the first chance they get they'll take a real job with real benefits.
Right, because their alternative of being unemployed is soooo much better and won't make them desperate in any way.
While the study isn't fake news, the negative impact is still there. The number of people who see the incorrect clickbait headline far exceeds those who saw the correction. While this has always been a problem in news and politics, I hold researchers at a prestigious university to a higher standard.
The amount of government assistance is about the same (efficiency gain of fewer people), but the company saves money and one person if freed from the system
The overall economy grows.
How does the company save money? They're paying the same amount, but get less work in return. The value that is produced by one person being paid $15 / hr is significantly less than 3 people being paid $5 / hr. That's not growing the economy at all.
Well as long as you don't feel guilty having a near slave driving you around.. I wouldn't do it.
Most people don't. But you're just a hypocrite. Poorly paid "slaves" made the computer you're typing on, the food you're eating and the clothes you're wearing. Even if you only buy from hipster shops, those "ethical" businesses don't pay first-world rates for everything they use. Try asking whether the computer they use is made in China. At some point, your money is ending up as "slave" wages. And you know what? That's a good thing, because "slave" wages are better than nothing.
Also half of all Uber drivers quit within 12 months. Why would they do that if the pay isn't crap (to turn around your argument)?
Because some of them started doing Uber when they got laid off, then found another job within a year? Gig work will always be more transient than regular work. About two thirds of the Uber drivers I spoke are either in-between jobs or are doing it in their off time. The rest are ex-taxi drivers, who I suspect are not driving for Uber out of the goodness of their hearts.
If they start making money after 1 or 2 days of work, they're already much better off than most other jobs. Those don't pay you until 2 weeks after you start.
Google's HR sanctioned the manager and put a stop to the quotas. That may well save them from the discrimination claims, because the fixed it when it was reported.
I wouldn't call that "fixed". They moved the manager to another role (still employed and still on the same team), and they did not stop with the quotas. Yes, they tried to delete internal references to it, but they also created a new team that only had diversity quotas. Besides, they still had the recruiter's performance review tied to the number of diversity hires and not the number of total hires.
Of course at this stage it's all allegations, but discovery should reveal whether those can be substantiated.
If they turn out to be true, the only reasonable course of action for YouTube employees is to assume women, hispanics and blacks hired within that timespan are of significantly lower skill than everyone else.
Of all the sites out there,/. is one that should give us maximum transparency. Many of us have dealt with the exact same kind of problems the site has been running into.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
In any case, freedom of speech is an idea and it does not cease to exist when it's not codified in law.
You said it. It is literally impossible to review all reported content right away. Some of them might be very long, or even contain videos that are more than an hour long. Just reading or watching it all is impossible. Plus the vast majority will be borderline, containing anti-west or anarchist ideas but not outright calling for violence.
Obviously, if this becomes law, the only way to comply is to automatically take down any reported content without review. My only hope is that they take them down just in the EU so those EU politicians can see for themselves what happens when you let their opposition have that kind of power.
We should not deny voting rights to anyone. There are no clear boundaries on what offenses can result in the removal of voting rights and the bar is being lowered all the time. I always hear about misdemeanors being turned into felonies, never the other way around. Prison sentences are also getting longer all the time.
This will eventually result in the creation of a permanent, disenfranchised underclass. They will be poor, undereducated and denied of social benefits. Since they can't vote, they can only lose more and more rights as time goes on. They will feel like the world is conspiring against them, and they will find solace in each other. If history is any indication, groups of such people is at best unproductive and a drain on society, and at worst a danger to everyone.
It's much easier to convince a relatively small group of wealthy people pay for a sun shade than it is to convince every poor person on earth not to dig free energy out of the ground.
Slashdot Mirror
If I would go by car from Karlsruhe to Paris, 450km is about 45EUR for fuel and about 90EUR road tolls and 5:30h trip (train is 2:30h).
That doesn't really tell me whether road or rail transportation is better, only that in Europe, it's public policy to discourage car use (for better or worse).
Gas in the US is currently $2.50 a gallon. An economy car* will get 40 MPG, which means the 450 km (270 mi) drive will cost about $17.50 in gas. Freeways are free to use, so all that's left is the car's maintenance costs, which is about $0.07 a mile for an economy car, adding another $20 for the trip. In total that's $37.50, or 30 EUR. Americans will also drive at or above 70 mph, so the trip would only take 4 hours instead of 5:30.
If the US started collecting a very high toll, I imagine it could become more convenient to travel by rail than car, but there's no reason that needs to happen. The US government currently spends less on freeways ($69 billion) than the top 10 countries in Europe do on rail ($80 billion combined).
*An economy car in the US is something like a Ford Focus or Toyota Corolla, which can seat 5 people.
I'm personally skeptical that we can actually teach a machine to distinguish between "clean" and "sanitised" surfaces within the foreseeable future.
Why would it need to do that? Does a car wash check how clean your car is before washing it?
I can foresee a solution where the cooking robots are disassembled and cleaned on a completely automated and a regular basis e.g. they get cleaned three times day.
It doesn't have to be automated, a human is probably cheaper in the near term and they can wash the robots in several different stores in a day. They'll go from needing 2 or 3 full-time employees per store to 1/3rd or 1/4th of an employee per store.
Sure, it'll only take 20 years to settle all of the environmental protection lawsuits, then another 20 to settle all the "blocked view" suits from the property owners.
While I agree with you on the minimal effect of emigration, that doesn't refute GP's point that red tape is holding California back. Without red tape, perhaps California could have a bigger economy than all but one nation in the world.
...if we are past the tipping point like they say, then it's effectively over anyway, so what I do doesn't significantly matter.
There's slipping and falling in the water, and then there's refusing to tread water after falling in. The first is an unfortunate accident. The second deserves a Darwin Award.
UNIX time still has leap seconds. I think we should all switch to TAI and fully detach our clocks from the planet's orbit and rotation.
Since the cars were occupied, that would be assault with a deadly weapon. Of course, if really it were in Texas, the passenger probably has an AR-15 and wouldn't need to wait for the police to show up to send the dumbass to kingdom come.
Interestingly for teachers, it'll be those that teach the youngest kids that who are the hardest to automate, since kindergarteners need an adult human to keep them in check, where as college students can study almost as well from a video of the professor as the professor in the flesh.
Though if you're really worried, you could try to become a software engineer specializing in automation. That or prostitution I guess.
China's already on that path. President Xi just removed his own term limits and nobody can stop him.
Meanwhile there are countries without the 2nd that have defended themselves from tyranny with militias and armed people (no reason the people can't be armed without a 2nd amendment, just means you can stop mentally unbalanced people or former crooks from owning arms...)
The 2nd amendment doesn't go into that much detail. You can certainly interpret it to have psychiatric limitations or training requirements. But the problem is, you need to create a process for determining who can and cannot be trusted with a gun, and the process cannot be subverted or controlled by the government.
Right now it's impossible to tell whether the existence of the 2nd had prevented the rise of tyrannical rulers. Maybe just by creating the possibility of an armed revolt, it made oppressive rule unthinkable. But maybe oppression didn't happen other reasons, such as the 1st amendment or the separation of powers. Or maybe we just haven't been around long enough to see it play out. Some of the other democracies already have such problems (e.g. Russia, Turkey, Venezuela, Iran...).
Despite my uncertainty in the role of the 2nd however, I do believe the entirety of the Bill of Rights is preventing the US from being ruled by a dictator. Maybe getting rid of the 2nd by itself isn't a big deal, but it's like taking out pieces of a car. Some, or even most components aren't critical to its continuous operation, but if you keep it up, eventually you'll remove a critical component, and the whole thing will come crashing down.
41% still make less than minimum wage. That drives my wages down (and yours too). These Uber drivers aren't dumb, they're desperate and unlucky. They know they're getting screwed and the first chance they get they'll take a real job with real benefits.
Right, because their alternative of being unemployed is soooo much better and won't make them desperate in any way.
While the study isn't fake news, the negative impact is still there. The number of people who see the incorrect clickbait headline far exceeds those who saw the correction. While this has always been a problem in news and politics, I hold researchers at a prestigious university to a higher standard.
The amount of government assistance is about the same (efficiency gain of fewer people), but the company saves money and one person if freed from the system
The overall economy grows.
How does the company save money? They're paying the same amount, but get less work in return. The value that is produced by one person being paid $15 / hr is significantly less than 3 people being paid $5 / hr. That's not growing the economy at all.
Well as long as you don't feel guilty having a near slave driving you around.. I wouldn't do it.
Most people don't. But you're just a hypocrite. Poorly paid "slaves" made the computer you're typing on, the food you're eating and the clothes you're wearing. Even if you only buy from hipster shops, those "ethical" businesses don't pay first-world rates for everything they use. Try asking whether the computer they use is made in China. At some point, your money is ending up as "slave" wages. And you know what? That's a good thing, because "slave" wages are better than nothing.
Also half of all Uber drivers quit within 12 months. Why would they do that if the pay isn't crap (to turn around your argument)?
Because some of them started doing Uber when they got laid off, then found another job within a year? Gig work will always be more transient than regular work. About two thirds of the Uber drivers I spoke are either in-between jobs or are doing it in their off time. The rest are ex-taxi drivers, who I suspect are not driving for Uber out of the goodness of their hearts.
If they start making money after 1 or 2 days of work, they're already much better off than most other jobs. Those don't pay you until 2 weeks after you start.
Are they talking about asians or orientals?
Is there a word that includes Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Indian, but not Southeast Asia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle East or Russia?
Google's HR sanctioned the manager and put a stop to the quotas. That may well save them from the discrimination claims, because the fixed it when it was reported.
I wouldn't call that "fixed". They moved the manager to another role (still employed and still on the same team), and they did not stop with the quotas. Yes, they tried to delete internal references to it, but they also created a new team that only had diversity quotas. Besides, they still had the recruiter's performance review tied to the number of diversity hires and not the number of total hires.
Of course at this stage it's all allegations, but discovery should reveal whether those can be substantiated.
If they turn out to be true, the only reasonable course of action for YouTube employees is to assume women, hispanics and blacks hired within that timespan are of significantly lower skill than everyone else.
Of all the sites out there, /. is one that should give us maximum transparency. Many of us have dealt with the exact same kind of problems the site has been running into.
Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
In any case, freedom of speech is an idea and it does not cease to exist when it's not codified in law.
You said it. It is literally impossible to review all reported content right away. Some of them might be very long, or even contain videos that are more than an hour long. Just reading or watching it all is impossible. Plus the vast majority will be borderline, containing anti-west or anarchist ideas but not outright calling for violence.
Obviously, if this becomes law, the only way to comply is to automatically take down any reported content without review. My only hope is that they take them down just in the EU so those EU politicians can see for themselves what happens when you let their opposition have that kind of power.
So you're telling me those automated Amazon warehouses I hear about on the news don't actually exist?
I'm fairly certain that very few people in 1800 owned firearms that could be used to kill 20 or more people in 5 minutes.
No, but they could own cannons and warships.
We should not deny voting rights to anyone. There are no clear boundaries on what offenses can result in the removal of voting rights and the bar is being lowered all the time. I always hear about misdemeanors being turned into felonies, never the other way around. Prison sentences are also getting longer all the time.
This will eventually result in the creation of a permanent, disenfranchised underclass. They will be poor, undereducated and denied of social benefits. Since they can't vote, they can only lose more and more rights as time goes on. They will feel like the world is conspiring against them, and they will find solace in each other. If history is any indication, groups of such people is at best unproductive and a drain on society, and at worst a danger to everyone.
It's much easier to convince a relatively small group of wealthy people pay for a sun shade than it is to convince every poor person on earth not to dig free energy out of the ground.