It may be misused, but it can be used for good things too. If it is local and I can control its activation, I don't see a problem.
More importantly, to tell you not to type your password when someone is watching. Obscuring the letters of the password is standard, but doesn't prevent someone from seeing what letters you press on the onscreen keyboard.
Human population is already beginning the process of declining
Life... ehmm.. finds a way.
Sure, Jeff.
But... seriously, finds a way to do what? Genes find a way to maximize their replicative success relative to competing genes. In the case of humans, we not only have genetic evolution, but also memetic evolution, and our meme sets (which we can collectively label "culture") have exactly the same sorts of imperatives, and probably do even more to regulate our behavior and choices than our genes. Memetic/cultural evolution is much faster and more flexible than genetic evolution.
So, given that, what choices -- driven by both genes and culture -- do humans make to maximize the replicative success of their offspring? When infant and child mortality is high, and when lots of additional, unskilled hands are useful to keep the whole family fed, they choose to have large families. When nearly all babies survive to parenthood, though, and when survival is maximized by having considerable resources (i.e. money), parents instead generally choose to have few children and invest heavily in their upbringing and education, to give them the maximum chance of acquiring substantial resources and being attractive to the highest-quality mate (since prospective mates are also looking for the same things).
In fact, this is exactly the dynamic that is driving reproductive strategies in the wealthy world today. Birth rate is strongly negatively correlated with child survival rates, female education, and wealth. In pretty much all of the developed world, this has already driven birth rates to below replacement levels. In some northern European countries this is already becoming a demographic problem, to the degree that some governments have public service advertising campaigns encouraging couples to have more children.
In the developing world we still see large families, but we also see rapid increases in child survival rates, female education and wealth. And the developed world is always looking to help the developing world improve in all of those areas.
Even with the bulk of the world's population still living in what the western world considers poverty, we've already reached and passed "peak child". Every indication is that current trends will continue, and even accelerate.
Basically, Malthus assumed that people behave like rabbits. We don't. That's not to say we're supremely rational and clear-thinking, but we do not respond the same way rabbits do. We have different incentives, motivations and capabilities, and the fact is that we respond to abundance by having fewer kids, not more.
But what the fuck, let's entrust the democratic process for
the entire United States to google. What could go wrong?
Oversight would be easily arranged. The FTC already does regular reviews, per the requirements of the Buzz consent decree.
And in any case the question isn't whether or not some company would be a perfect choice, it's whether it would be a better choice than what parties have been doing. And the answer is clearly that it would be better than what the DNC has been doing.
Let's see. Imperial, related to an empire or emperor. Fiat, declaration of something with some enforcement behind it. Fiat could apply here. However, the US is not an empire (at least not internally) and doesn't have an emperor. No government edicts are imperial. This is done by your suggestion of looking up the definitions of both words and combining them.
It's blindingly obvious that "imperial" was hyperbolic. We have a president who clearly wishes he were an emperor.
I'd disagree on two points. First, it's very likely people mined some Bitcoin and forgot about them or at least how to access them.
This is very likely the case. Back at the start when it was worth shit I mined about a dozen BTC. Lost them when I reformatted my computer and didn't even remember until years later when it would have been worth over $1,000.
Yep. Talk to a group of people who have been around this stuff for a few years, and you'll find that there are a lot of stories like that. I had 20-30 BTC myself, lost on some hard drive I disposed of years ago.
Honestly, although the process will be very painful, the effects on social structure will be a progressive's wet dream.
And up to here you were making sense. Progressives don't want huge government and military growth. Leave the political stupidity out and you'll do better.
You miss the point. Try reading the post from a conservative viewpoint.
Human population is already beginning the process of declining. There are fewer babies born every year, in absolute numbers. This will lead us to a peak population of about 10B (as we fill out the age brackets; the population skews young at the moment) and then it will decline.
If your point was to make that part more readable, I think I want you on the other team in the next debate.
If you find that unreadable, I don't want you on my team in the next software project.
Well, I do have to say that the code would not pass my code review. Not because of the use of the ternary operator, because of the meaningless variable names. I'd also ask that "0" be replaced with "false".
All this could play out in a mere 20 to 50 years -- much too quickly for humanity to adapt.
Humanity can adapt to changes on a far more rapid timescale than this. We don't have to hang around until we evolve gills we just move to higher ground and rebuild. This will involve social and economic upheaval and a reduction in the standard of living on a short timescale but that does not mean we cannot adapt to the change.
Absolutely right. Anyone who tries to claim that global warming is an existential threat is being ridiculous. We will adapt.
The short term adaptations required when sea levels rise in earnest and precipitation shifts between regions will almost certainly include large-scale government intervention to relocate populations, build massive systems of dikes and stormwalls, and engage in large-scale irrigation and fertilization projects to eke agricultural productivity out of newly-poor farmland while trying to turn newly-wet deserts into functional farms, etc. The political unrest that will be created by millions of starving people in less-affluent countries may well require a return to military conscription and militarization of a significant part of the (remaining) economy, to keep the upheaval out. Military force may be needed to disarm the population and suppress rebellions. We'll likely have to nationalize a lot of industries and use eminent domain to take a lot of land from people in the process of relocating and restructuring the population and the agricultural and industrial bases. Expect serious rationing and a major decline in average quality of life -- though you can also expect a massive reduction in inequality as wealth is confiscated for use in attacking the effects of warming.
Yep, if we just let events proceed, we'll find ourselves in a large-scale crisis of the sort that requires organization on a massive scale, which will mandate huge government growth. It will probably even motivate suppressing national sovereignty in favor of a world government. Of course, government being what it is, the power it takes in order to address the problems will be greater than what is actually required. That's what happens in emergencies.
Honestly, although the process will be very painful, the effects on social structure will be a progressive's wet dream. Conservatives and libertarians should be focused now on heading off this disaster, by implementing carbon markets to harness free market entrepreneurialism and innovation to halt and reverse warming before the effects arrive.
You know, the rest of your post was pretty good. It's too bad you had to include this bit of idiocy in the beginning:
What's an "imperial fiat"? Is that some sort of Italian car driven by an Emperor? Or are those just words that don't convey meaning, but you think they sound educated? Like "paradigm shift".
Both of those phrases are perfectly sensible. "Paradigm shift" is a big jargony, and is often overused by business types to describe minor changes in perspective that are definitely not paradigm shifts, but there's nothing at all wrong with "imperial fiat". Just read the definitions of both words and combine them.
2. Use the cloud:
A big, commercial cloud service will be much more secure than anything you can set up. Use a cloud-based office suite like GSuite or Microsoft365 that will provide all your basic office functions and a safe place to store information.
That's completely ridiculous, short-sighted crap. We're all supposed to trust our entire voting system to a tiny handful of companies?
OTOH, said companies actually have a really good security track record, in spite of being among the most attractive targets on the planet. When was the last time someone compromised GMail?
You're going to pay someone for sleeping in a truck?
Obviously not. The driver who is sleeping isn't getting paid, the driver who is driving is getting paid. A lot of couples drive this way. They make almost as much as what they'd make if both of them were driving separate trucks, but without having to spend all of their time apart. It works very well for the truck owner (which is often the couple) because the truck is rolling nearly 24 hours per day, maximizing the return on capital investment.
Of course, what would be an even better use of capital investment is a couple shift-driving the lead truck of a "train", with the following vehicles self-driving. But mega-charging a train could be tricky, and time-consuming. Plus, rolling 24 hours per day will require more capacity than Tesla is putting in the trucks, even with megacharging. The obvious answer is: put batteries in the trailers.
I mentioned this to my brother (who drives trucks, medium-haul -- for a company that has already ordered several Tesla Semis) yesterday, and he pointed out that they don't even have to give up cargo space to do that. Some haulers have experimented with using the undercarriage area for additional cargo capacity. It has some significant advantages, in that it lowers the trailer's center of gravity (good on windy routes) and eliminates the need for an undercarriage fairing, but it's not much used because loading and unloading the undercarriage compartments is difficult. So... put batteries there. It adds weight, but doesn't consume cargo space.
He also points out that his company's tractors stay in motion nearly 24x7, but the trailers spend a good chunk of each day in a depot getting loaded or unloaded. So, if the trailer batteries can be charged while that's going on, there's less need for the tractor to stop moving.
Big batteries in tractors is probably necessary at the beginning, but I don't think it will be too long before the majority of the capacity moves out of the tractors and into the trailers, at least for long-haul routes.
they can just threaten to delete an app off billions of devices if you don't play along with whatever they demand?
I don't know about Apple, but Google's Play Store can't delete apps from your phone. They could pull the app from the store and not distribute new downloads, or updates, but not remove it from devices that already have it.
What this means, though, is that the only ones that can continue to make videos (unless they're rich or have some independent source of income) are those that get paid to make those videos by "supporters".
In other words, back to reality as it has always been. Making and distributing content costs money. These days, it costs less than it ever has before, but it's still not free. Actually, YouTube is still offering to do the distribution part for free, even for content that no advertiser wishes to support. That's a pretty incredible deal. You can broadcast video to the entire world, as much as you want, for nothing. YouTube will even store your video and serve it on demand, at no cost whatsoever to you.
Granted, this incredible deal isn't quite as incredible as the one where YouTube would actually pay you, even though it meant risking pissing off YouTube's customers (the advertisers), and therefore costing YouTube money on top of what they paid you, and spent to distribute your content. That deal was literally too good to be true. And once advertisers started to figure it out and the potential cost became real, YouTube realized they had to stop offering that too-good-to-be-true deal.
So now they won't pay you, they'll only serve your video on demand to anyone, for free. Oh, and they'll also provide you with analytics about how much your videos are watched, and when, and they'll notify your viewers of new content you make, and they'll provide a mechanism people can use to find your videos. For free.
Because if you want me to support you, you better broadcast a message that I like!
How different is that from:
Because if you want me to watch you, you better broadcast a message that I like!
Or:
Because if you want me to pay you to broadcast, you better broadcast a message that I like!
Those have always been true, and will always be true. If you want people to watch, you'd better make something they like. And if you want to be paid for it, you'd better make something someone is willing to pay you to broadcast.
This is just reality reasserting itself after a brief foray into insanity. Well, arguably the current deal (we'll deliver your content to the world for free, plus the other goodies) is also a little insane.
Banning the tool instead of the crime affects legitimate use of the tool by law-abiding citizens.
The difference with guns - especially the assault types obtainable in the US - is that they have no legitimate use.
You would have to define killing other people as legitimate for you to be able to use that argument with guns.
So, then what do the 99.999% of guns that are never used in any crime get used for, if they have no legitimate use?
Slashdot Mirror
7) To not show your password as you type it?
It may be misused, but it can be used for good things too. If it is local and I can control its activation, I don't see a problem.
More importantly, to tell you not to type your password when someone is watching. Obscuring the letters of the password is standard, but doesn't prevent someone from seeing what letters you press on the onscreen keyboard.
Human population is already beginning the process of declining
Life... ehmm.. finds a way.
Sure, Jeff.
But... seriously, finds a way to do what? Genes find a way to maximize their replicative success relative to competing genes. In the case of humans, we not only have genetic evolution, but also memetic evolution, and our meme sets (which we can collectively label "culture") have exactly the same sorts of imperatives, and probably do even more to regulate our behavior and choices than our genes. Memetic/cultural evolution is much faster and more flexible than genetic evolution.
So, given that, what choices -- driven by both genes and culture -- do humans make to maximize the replicative success of their offspring? When infant and child mortality is high, and when lots of additional, unskilled hands are useful to keep the whole family fed, they choose to have large families. When nearly all babies survive to parenthood, though, and when survival is maximized by having considerable resources (i.e. money), parents instead generally choose to have few children and invest heavily in their upbringing and education, to give them the maximum chance of acquiring substantial resources and being attractive to the highest-quality mate (since prospective mates are also looking for the same things).
In fact, this is exactly the dynamic that is driving reproductive strategies in the wealthy world today. Birth rate is strongly negatively correlated with child survival rates, female education, and wealth. In pretty much all of the developed world, this has already driven birth rates to below replacement levels. In some northern European countries this is already becoming a demographic problem, to the degree that some governments have public service advertising campaigns encouraging couples to have more children.
In the developing world we still see large families, but we also see rapid increases in child survival rates, female education and wealth. And the developed world is always looking to help the developing world improve in all of those areas.
Even with the bulk of the world's population still living in what the western world considers poverty, we've already reached and passed "peak child". Every indication is that current trends will continue, and even accelerate.
Basically, Malthus assumed that people behave like rabbits. We don't. That's not to say we're supremely rational and clear-thinking, but we do not respond the same way rabbits do. We have different incentives, motivations and capabilities, and the fact is that we respond to abundance by having fewer kids, not more.
You mean besides google?
What does that even mean?
We don't know.
But what the fuck, let's entrust the democratic process for the entire United States to google. What could go wrong?
Oversight would be easily arranged. The FTC already does regular reviews, per the requirements of the Buzz consent decree.
And in any case the question isn't whether or not some company would be a perfect choice, it's whether it would be a better choice than what parties have been doing. And the answer is clearly that it would be better than what the DNC has been doing.
Let's see. Imperial, related to an empire or emperor. Fiat, declaration of something with some enforcement behind it. Fiat could apply here. However, the US is not an empire (at least not internally) and doesn't have an emperor. No government edicts are imperial. This is done by your suggestion of looking up the definitions of both words and combining them.
It's blindingly obvious that "imperial" was hyperbolic. We have a president who clearly wishes he were an emperor.
I'd disagree on two points. First, it's very likely people mined some Bitcoin and forgot about them or at least how to access them.
This is very likely the case. Back at the start when it was worth shit I mined about a dozen BTC. Lost them when I reformatted my computer and didn't even remember until years later when it would have been worth over $1,000.
Yep. Talk to a group of people who have been around this stuff for a few years, and you'll find that there are a lot of stories like that. I had 20-30 BTC myself, lost on some hard drive I disposed of years ago.
I'd also ask that "0" be replaced with "false".
I'm so hoping that was a joke.
Not a bit. Using the explicit boolean literal makes the author's intent clearer.
No, no. Focus on the last paragraph.
And up to here you were making sense. Progressives don't want huge government and military growth. Leave the political stupidity out and you'll do better.
You miss the point. Try reading the post from a conservative viewpoint.
Also, I think you still haven't read my post. You should. To the end.
Human population is already beginning the process of declining. There are fewer babies born every year, in absolute numbers. This will lead us to a peak population of about 10B (as we fill out the age brackets; the population skews young at the moment) and then it will decline.
Why did you change your opinion, just so you could continue to disagree?
If your point was to make that part more readable, I think I want you on the other team in the next debate.
If you find that unreadable, I don't want you on my team in the next software project.
Well, I do have to say that the code would not pass my code review. Not because of the use of the ternary operator, because of the meaningless variable names. I'd also ask that "0" be replaced with "false".
If your point was to make that part more readable, I think I want you on the other team in the next debate.
If you find that unreadable, I don't want you on my team in the next software project.
You didn't read my post.
No serious climate science predicts that degree of ocean acidification.
You didn't read my post, did you?
All this could play out in a mere 20 to 50 years -- much too quickly for humanity to adapt.
Humanity can adapt to changes on a far more rapid timescale than this. We don't have to hang around until we evolve gills we just move to higher ground and rebuild. This will involve social and economic upheaval and a reduction in the standard of living on a short timescale but that does not mean we cannot adapt to the change.
Absolutely right. Anyone who tries to claim that global warming is an existential threat is being ridiculous. We will adapt.
The short term adaptations required when sea levels rise in earnest and precipitation shifts between regions will almost certainly include large-scale government intervention to relocate populations, build massive systems of dikes and stormwalls, and engage in large-scale irrigation and fertilization projects to eke agricultural productivity out of newly-poor farmland while trying to turn newly-wet deserts into functional farms, etc. The political unrest that will be created by millions of starving people in less-affluent countries may well require a return to military conscription and militarization of a significant part of the (remaining) economy, to keep the upheaval out. Military force may be needed to disarm the population and suppress rebellions. We'll likely have to nationalize a lot of industries and use eminent domain to take a lot of land from people in the process of relocating and restructuring the population and the agricultural and industrial bases. Expect serious rationing and a major decline in average quality of life -- though you can also expect a massive reduction in inequality as wealth is confiscated for use in attacking the effects of warming.
Yep, if we just let events proceed, we'll find ourselves in a large-scale crisis of the sort that requires organization on a massive scale, which will mandate huge government growth. It will probably even motivate suppressing national sovereignty in favor of a world government. Of course, government being what it is, the power it takes in order to address the problems will be greater than what is actually required. That's what happens in emergencies.
Honestly, although the process will be very painful, the effects on social structure will be a progressive's wet dream. Conservatives and libertarians should be focused now on heading off this disaster, by implementing carbon markets to harness free market entrepreneurialism and innovation to halt and reverse warming before the effects arrive.
You know, the rest of your post was pretty good. It's too bad you had to include this bit of idiocy in the beginning:
What's an "imperial fiat"? Is that some sort of Italian car driven by an Emperor? Or are those just words that don't convey meaning, but you think they sound educated? Like "paradigm shift".
Both of those phrases are perfectly sensible. "Paradigm shift" is a big jargony, and is often overused by business types to describe minor changes in perspective that are definitely not paradigm shifts, but there's nothing at all wrong with "imperial fiat". Just read the definitions of both words and combine them.
https://www.belfercenter.org/c...
That's completely ridiculous, short-sighted crap. We're all supposed to trust our entire voting system to a tiny handful of companies?
OTOH, said companies actually have a really good security track record, in spite of being among the most attractive targets on the planet. When was the last time someone compromised GMail?
You're going to pay someone for sleeping in a truck?
Obviously not. The driver who is sleeping isn't getting paid, the driver who is driving is getting paid. A lot of couples drive this way. They make almost as much as what they'd make if both of them were driving separate trucks, but without having to spend all of their time apart. It works very well for the truck owner (which is often the couple) because the truck is rolling nearly 24 hours per day, maximizing the return on capital investment.
Of course, what would be an even better use of capital investment is a couple shift-driving the lead truck of a "train", with the following vehicles self-driving. But mega-charging a train could be tricky, and time-consuming. Plus, rolling 24 hours per day will require more capacity than Tesla is putting in the trucks, even with megacharging. The obvious answer is: put batteries in the trailers.
I mentioned this to my brother (who drives trucks, medium-haul -- for a company that has already ordered several Tesla Semis) yesterday, and he pointed out that they don't even have to give up cargo space to do that. Some haulers have experimented with using the undercarriage area for additional cargo capacity. It has some significant advantages, in that it lowers the trailer's center of gravity (good on windy routes) and eliminates the need for an undercarriage fairing, but it's not much used because loading and unloading the undercarriage compartments is difficult. So... put batteries there. It adds weight, but doesn't consume cargo space.
He also points out that his company's tractors stay in motion nearly 24x7, but the trailers spend a good chunk of each day in a depot getting loaded or unloaded. So, if the trailer batteries can be charged while that's going on, there's less need for the tractor to stop moving.
Big batteries in tractors is probably necessary at the beginning, but I don't think it will be too long before the majority of the capacity moves out of the tractors and into the trailers, at least for long-haul routes.
they can just threaten to delete an app off billions of devices if you don't play along with whatever they demand?
I don't know about Apple, but Google's Play Store can't delete apps from your phone. They could pull the app from the store and not distribute new downloads, or updates, but not remove it from devices that already have it.
So far the theory.
What this means, though, is that the only ones that can continue to make videos (unless they're rich or have some independent source of income) are those that get paid to make those videos by "supporters".
In other words, back to reality as it has always been. Making and distributing content costs money. These days, it costs less than it ever has before, but it's still not free. Actually, YouTube is still offering to do the distribution part for free, even for content that no advertiser wishes to support. That's a pretty incredible deal. You can broadcast video to the entire world, as much as you want, for nothing. YouTube will even store your video and serve it on demand, at no cost whatsoever to you.
Granted, this incredible deal isn't quite as incredible as the one where YouTube would actually pay you, even though it meant risking pissing off YouTube's customers (the advertisers), and therefore costing YouTube money on top of what they paid you, and spent to distribute your content. That deal was literally too good to be true. And once advertisers started to figure it out and the potential cost became real, YouTube realized they had to stop offering that too-good-to-be-true deal.
So now they won't pay you, they'll only serve your video on demand to anyone, for free. Oh, and they'll also provide you with analytics about how much your videos are watched, and when, and they'll notify your viewers of new content you make, and they'll provide a mechanism people can use to find your videos. For free.
Because if you want me to support you, you better broadcast a message that I like!
How different is that from:
Because if you want me to watch you, you better broadcast a message that I like!
Or:
Because if you want me to pay you to broadcast, you better broadcast a message that I like!
Those have always been true, and will always be true. If you want people to watch, you'd better make something they like. And if you want to be paid for it, you'd better make something someone is willing to pay you to broadcast.
This is just reality reasserting itself after a brief foray into insanity. Well, arguably the current deal (we'll deliver your content to the world for free, plus the other goodies) is also a little insane.
Banning the tool instead of the crime affects legitimate use of the tool by law-abiding citizens.
The difference with guns - especially the assault types obtainable in the US - is that they have no legitimate use. You would have to define killing other people as legitimate for you to be able to use that argument with guns.
So, then what do the 99.999% of guns that are never used in any crime get used for, if they have no legitimate use?
There you go again, using logic with people. They very strongly believe in one thing, until they don't.
This article is about the food industry covering up the dangers of sugar for 50 years
s/covering up/not funding studies that show/
There's a fairly large difference there. There are plenty of independent and government studies of GMOs.