While I'd be the LAST one to exonerate the misdeeds of my own United States...for all those decrying the "US controls the internet" and all the painting of the US as some sort of malignant capitalist force in the world generally: understand that your actual choice ISN'T the US vs whatever utopia you have cooked up in your head where governments aren't power-hungry monsters and commerce is run by the pleasant hippy guy down at your local co-op who gives you free snacks and coffee "for whatever you feel is fair, dude".
No, the ACTUAL choices in the world we live in are: - the US - China - maybe Russia...as your superpowers.
As much as the US is deeply flawed in many ways, it's still orders of magnitude more benign than the alternatives.
Any good fisherman will tell you, there's a certain point where the bait's not big enough for the hook; crying because the fish are uninterested in the hook isn't going to get you more fish.
Stop being irredeemably greedy, you're far, far past the point of diminishing returns.
Since you have campaigns for getting rid of the smallest currencies - the penny, the $1 bill - and now a campaign for getting rid of the largest, we should meet somewhere in the middle. My suggestion would be to have ONLY a single cash token, worth $37.61.
In the first place, the odd amount would improve American numeracy; in the second, anything purchased below that, the change could be absorbed by the US government to offset the debt. It could be made of plastic harvested from the ocean, so we get the industrious folks who see the effort at bitcoin mining growing too ridiculous to turn their efforts toward a public good: cash mining from the seas, and the substance itself is intrinsically valueless, which is metaphorically representative of the US gov't generally.
...but honestly, the only thing that really has me interested in this story is: who the fuck is actually getting their music from Tidal?
(Personally, I suspect it's a vanishingly tiny group of colossally stupid people PLUS a larger group of shills paid by the artists to 'fluff' the Tidal activity numbers.)
At some point we seem to have recognized how vitally important networks and computers have become to our system, but we still pretty much treat hacking as a minor (if not outright trivial) crime.
Then again, I'm for capital punishment because if you have 7+ billion of ANYTHING, they're demonstrably not precious.
This is what passes for 'insightful' on Slashdot. An animated personal attack on a dead man, essentially because you disagree with his politics.
I could argue (whatever political stance you have) that your positions, if fulfilled, would cause "suffering, misery, and death". Does that mean you too aren't a decent person?
Based on your attacks on a dead man, it's more likely true of you than him.
I've always wondered why nobody did this with the 'soundwalls' that parallel every urban highway today - all you'd be taking is sound energy, so essentially it would even perhaps improve their sound-deadening qualities, while powering a nearby street light or two.
" I would love to see a multi-node thermostat that is affordable (and secure, if it is not, fuck that), adaptive, that learns to program itself, that I can control (securely) over wi-fi..."
I'm genuinely curious: why? "Adaptive" - adaptive to what? How many houses do you live in? "Learns to program itself" Why? Aren't you going to be there? Don't you ultimately at some point have to tell it "that's too hot, that's too cold"? Wifi and Multi-node: I presume you mean "I can control from multiple places" How many places do you need to adjust your home's thermostat? Why would you possibly need to adjust your thermostat if you're not there?
How often do you need to change it? Seriously - I haven't touched my home's thermostat in probably 4 years.
...the IoT is a generally stupid idea, for all the hundreds of reasons that have been repeated here ad infinitum: additional points of failure in systems that benefit very little or not at all from the 'features' added by the new connectivity.
Personally, I think the best response for such language would be for Siri or Cortana to simply reply with "that sort of language really turns me off" and then power down (maybe wait for the 3rd example). It's a relatively gentle chiding, and enough of an inconvenience that people would avoid it. And it would kind of be funny.
I have no problem with these systems discouraging uncivil behavior or language. No problem there.
What I have a problem with is the sense of aggrievement now spreading to inanimate objects. It's a memetic cancer. Personally I don't believe that a society can long function if one has to filter ones' comments (and let's be honest, THOUGHTS is the real intent) for every person's conceivable sensitivities. Offense is personal; you cannot insult me if I don't care what you say. Far more sustainable to grow a reasonably thick skin and live your life without looking for opportunities to claim victim status. Expanding the "hurt feelings" franchise to machinery is frankly ridiculous.
- fuck you and your ridiculous stone age religious sympathies. (BTW I'd say the same thing to Christians if they prevented building a telescope on a Chilean mountain because "Jesus' spirit lives here") - fuck you and your revisionist history; if Hawaii was still its own country, you'd have your own 1%ers that would instead own that land, the normal people STILL wouldn't be allowed there, and the astronomers could build their telescope there simply by paying someone a hefty bribe with probably 10% the complications - fuck you generally.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.
Political correctness* stems from a perfectly reasonable idea: be nice to other people.
But as the Founding Fathers wisely intuited 240 years ago, to INSIST on that itself is at root a sort of social tyranny, which indeed then opens the slippery-slope question "according to whom?"
A multicultural society CANNOT function in which everyone has to constantly try to anticipate everyone else's triggers.
The only reasonable solution is a general promotion of freedom of speech and internalizing the idea that offense is self-created. This isn't to say people shouldn't be offended; in my view much of the progress of humanity has stemmed from people being offended at something or another. They certainly have the right to their offense. But when this offense fuels actions that are then designed to constrain other peoples' right to their own freedom of speech - there a line is crossed, and the corrosion of free speech begins.
(And for the pedants, yes, I'm aware that the Constitutional provision about free speech only applies to the behavior of the Federal government; I'm speaking more broadly in terms of cultural values.)
*the real comedy is that there are still people who ardently insist there IS "no such thing" (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/24/781372/-)
It's as meaningful as insisting a plane overflew "Iowan" airspace.
It may have overflown UK airspace, and I'd suspect that the UK was cool with it (whether they knew what it was doing or not, as I'm guessing US/UK flights don't necessarily engender too much scrutiny).
Slashdot Mirror
While I'd be the LAST one to exonerate the misdeeds of my own United States...for all those decrying the "US controls the internet" and all the painting of the US as some sort of malignant capitalist force in the world generally: understand that your actual choice ISN'T the US vs whatever utopia you have cooked up in your head where governments aren't power-hungry monsters and commerce is run by the pleasant hippy guy down at your local co-op who gives you free snacks and coffee "for whatever you feel is fair, dude".
No, the ACTUAL choices in the world we live in are: ...as your superpowers.
- the US
- China
- maybe Russia
As much as the US is deeply flawed in many ways, it's still orders of magnitude more benign than the alternatives.
...the Imperial system of weights and measures is bad because it's "arbitrary".
Any good fisherman will tell you, there's a certain point where the bait's not big enough for the hook; crying because the fish are uninterested in the hook isn't going to get you more fish.
Stop being irredeemably greedy, you're far, far past the point of diminishing returns.
http://www.skepticalscience.co...
Since you have campaigns for getting rid of the smallest currencies - the penny, the $1 bill - and now a campaign for getting rid of the largest, we should meet somewhere in the middle.
My suggestion would be to have ONLY a single cash token, worth $37.61.
In the first place, the odd amount would improve American numeracy; in the second, anything purchased below that, the change could be absorbed by the US government to offset the debt.
It could be made of plastic harvested from the ocean, so we get the industrious folks who see the effort at bitcoin mining growing too ridiculous to turn their efforts toward a public good: cash mining from the seas, and the substance itself is intrinsically valueless, which is metaphorically representative of the US gov't generally.
It's a win-win-win.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/...
A (Not Quite) Complete List Of Things Supposedly
Caused By Global Warming
Now plus 'asynchronous bird hatching and increased chick mortality'!
Acne , Longer plane flights , agricultural land increase , Afghan poppies destroyed , Africa devastated , Africa in conflict , African aid threatened , African summer frost , aggressive weeds , More Toxic Poison Ivy , air pressure changes , airport malaria , Agulhas current , Alaska reshaped , moves , allergy season longer , alligators in the Thames , Alps melting , Amazon a desert , American dream end , amphibians breeding earlier (or not) , anaphylactic reactions to bee stings , ancient forests dramatically changed , animals head for the hills , animals shrink , Antarctic grass flourishes , Antarctic ice grows , Antarctic ice shrinks , Antarctic sea life at risk , anxiety treatment , algal blooms , archaeological sites threatened , Arab Spring , Arctic bogs melt , Arctic in bloom , Arctic ice free , Arctic ice melt faster , Arctic lakes disappear , Arctic tundra to burn , Arctic warming (not) , Atlantic less salty , Atlantic more salty , atmospheric circulation modified , attack of the killer jellyfish , avalanches reduced , avalanches increased , Baghdad snow , Bahrain under water , bananas grow , barbarisation , beer shortage , beetle infestation , bet for $10,000 , better beer , big melt faster , billion dollar research projects , billion homeless , billions face risk , billions of deaths , bird distributions change , bird loss accelerating , birds shrinking , bird strikes , bird visitors drop , birds confused , birds decline (Wales) , birds driven north , birds return early , bittern boom ends , blackbirds stop singing , blackbirds threatened , Black Hawk down , blood contaminated , blue mussels return , bluetongue , brain eating amoebae , brains shrink , bridge collapse (Minneapolis) , Britain one big city , Smaller loaves of Bread , Britain Siberian , brothels struggle , brown Ireland , bubonic plague , budget increases , Buddhist temple threatened , building collapse , building season extension , bushfires , business risks , butterflies move north , camel deaths , cancer deaths in England , cannibalism , cannibalism again , caterpillar biomass shift , cave paintings threatened , childhood insomnia , Cholera , circumcision in decline , cirrus disappearance , civil unrest , cloud increase , coast beauty spots lost , cockroach migration , coffee threatened , cold climate creatures survive , cold spells (Australia) , cold wave (India) , computer models , conferences , conflict , conflict with Russia , consumers foot the bill , coral bleaching , coral fish suffer , coral reefs dying , coral reefs grow , coral reefs shrink , coral reefs twilight , Cabbage Shortage , cost of trillions , cougar attacks , crabgrass menace , cradle of civilisation threatened , creatures move uphill , crime increase , crocodile sex , crops devastated , crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems , curriculum change , cyclones (Australia) , danger to kid's health , Darfur , Dartford Warbler plague , death rate increase (US) , deaths to reach 6 million , Dengue hemorrhagic fever , depression , depressed PETS! , desert advance , desert retreat , destruction of the environment , disappearance of coastal cities , disasters , diseases move from animals to humans , diseases move north , dog disease , Dolomites collapse , dozen deadly diseases , Drop in birth rates , drought , ducks and geese decline , dust bowl in the corn belt , early marriages , early spring , earlier pollen season , Earth biodiversity crisis , Earth dying , Earth even hotter , Earth light dimming , Earth lopsided , Earth melting , Earth morbid fever , Earth on fast track , Earth past point of no return , Earth slowing down , Earth slowing down 2 , Earth spins faster , Earth spins faster 2 , Earth to explode , Earth's poles shift , earth upside down , earthquakes , Specifically the 2015 Nepal earthquake
...but honestly, the only thing that really has me interested in this story is: who the fuck is actually getting their music from Tidal?
(Personally, I suspect it's a vanishingly tiny group of colossally stupid people PLUS a larger group of shills paid by the artists to 'fluff' the Tidal activity numbers.)
...make an example of him.
At some point we seem to have recognized how vitally important networks and computers have become to our system, but we still pretty much treat hacking as a minor (if not outright trivial) crime.
Then again, I'm for capital punishment because if you have 7+ billion of ANYTHING, they're demonstrably not precious.
....any project where my success or failure will not be determined for at least 50,000 years.
I am absolutely certain that I could guarantee results in that timeframe.
This is what passes for 'insightful' on Slashdot.
An animated personal attack on a dead man, essentially because you disagree with his politics.
I could argue (whatever political stance you have) that your positions, if fulfilled, would cause "suffering, misery, and death". Does that mean you too aren't a decent person?
Based on your attacks on a dead man, it's more likely true of you than him.
Like Senate Democrats did with Judge Bork?
Let's not forget who started this game.
There's probably a joke in there about how hard it is for Germans to detect sarcasm too, but I would never make such a comment.
I've always wondered why nobody did this with the 'soundwalls' that parallel every urban highway today - all you'd be taking is sound energy, so essentially it would even perhaps improve their sound-deadening qualities, while powering a nearby street light or two.
" I would love to see a multi-node thermostat that is affordable (and secure, if it is not, fuck that), adaptive, that learns to program itself, that I can control (securely) over wi-fi..."
I'm genuinely curious: why?
"Adaptive" - adaptive to what? How many houses do you live in?
"Learns to program itself" Why? Aren't you going to be there? Don't you ultimately at some point have to tell it "that's too hot, that's too cold"?
Wifi and Multi-node: I presume you mean "I can control from multiple places" How many places do you need to adjust your home's thermostat? Why would you possibly need to adjust your thermostat if you're not there?
How often do you need to change it? Seriously - I haven't touched my home's thermostat in probably 4 years.
...the IoT is a generally stupid idea, for all the hundreds of reasons that have been repeated here ad infinitum: additional points of failure in systems that benefit very little or not at all from the 'features' added by the new connectivity.
I don't know about you, but here multi-lane roads are common, where you have 2-5 lanes of traffic all going the same direction.
Removing the 'interior' lines would be suicidal.
Actually, you miss my point entirely.
Personally, I think the best response for such language would be for Siri or Cortana to simply reply with "that sort of language really turns me off" and then power down (maybe wait for the 3rd example). It's a relatively gentle chiding, and enough of an inconvenience that people would avoid it. And it would kind of be funny.
I have no problem with these systems discouraging uncivil behavior or language. No problem there.
What I have a problem with is the sense of aggrievement now spreading to inanimate objects. It's a memetic cancer.
Personally I don't believe that a society can long function if one has to filter ones' comments (and let's be honest, THOUGHTS is the real intent) for every person's conceivable sensitivities. Offense is personal; you cannot insult me if I don't care what you say. Far more sustainable to grow a reasonably thick skin and live your life without looking for opportunities to claim victim status.
Expanding the "hurt feelings" franchise to machinery is frankly ridiculous.
It's not just the US.
http://www.sanctionswiki.org/N...
Basically, North Korea is fucking crazytown, and NOBODY is happy with the idea of them being able to extend their military reach even a single meter.
So, what is an "inappropriate question" when you're asking a fucking COMPUTER?
Computers don't have feelings.
They don't have personality.
They aren't people.
I can't insult my table, nor a rock.
When will this SJW crap stop?
Seriously:
- fuck you and your ridiculous stone age religious sympathies. (BTW I'd say the same thing to Christians if they prevented building a telescope on a Chilean mountain because "Jesus' spirit lives here")
- fuck you and your revisionist history; if Hawaii was still its own country, you'd have your own 1%ers that would instead own that land, the normal people STILL wouldn't be allowed there, and the astronomers could build their telescope there simply by paying someone a hefty bribe with probably 10% the complications
- fuck you generally.
And now we'll see that 'internet activism' will result in - my guess - about five people out of those 20,000 ACTUALLY MOVING.
Five may be optimistic. Well...not if four already live in NH...
Or, perhaps I cut'n'pasted the quote and author's name, previewed, corrected what I noticed, but simply didn't notice the unicode correction of Ã?
I know, crazy, right?
As Martin NiemÃller sagely said:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.
Political correctness* stems from a perfectly reasonable idea: be nice to other people.
But as the Founding Fathers wisely intuited 240 years ago, to INSIST on that itself is at root a sort of social tyranny, which indeed then opens the slippery-slope question "according to whom?"
A multicultural society CANNOT function in which everyone has to constantly try to anticipate everyone else's triggers.
The only reasonable solution is a general promotion of freedom of speech and internalizing the idea that offense is self-created. This isn't to say people shouldn't be offended; in my view much of the progress of humanity has stemmed from people being offended at something or another. They certainly have the right to their offense. But when this offense fuels actions that are then designed to constrain other peoples' right to their own freedom of speech - there a line is crossed, and the corrosion of free speech begins.
(And for the pedants, yes, I'm aware that the Constitutional provision about free speech only applies to the behavior of the Federal government; I'm speaking more broadly in terms of cultural values.)
*the real comedy is that there are still people who ardently insist there IS "no such thing" (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/24/781372/-)
....as Scotland isn't a country.
It's as meaningful as insisting a plane overflew "Iowan" airspace.
It may have overflown UK airspace, and I'd suspect that the UK was cool with it (whether they knew what it was doing or not, as I'm guessing US/UK flights don't necessarily engender too much scrutiny).
Can I just add: no more Bennett Haselton or wtf his name is.
He can bloviate on his own blog, tyvm.