To me, the most interesting development in phones has been the incredibly value in the sub-$300 price, as evidenced by Motorola's various phones, Huawei, Honor, OnePlus, etc.
At the top end, perhaps prices will continue to climb but that certainly doesn't imply all prices will increase. The top tier phones will be luxury items for a certain segment of the market, but the overall trend in terms of phones being shipped has been the amount of value being delivered in the and mid and low price tiers, and that should be heart-warming for consumers. That $1000 phone might be better or the best, but it won't be $700 better than the Moto G6 or similar phone.
This is exactly right. It's not about open vs closed source, but eyeballs. For instance, take the HeartBleed / OpenSSL bugs from a few years ago. OpenSSL is used extremely often and all over the place, including by Google, Facebook, etc. But it had vulnerabilities in it that had existed for years and years, and it was because OpenSSL was really only being maintained by a handful of people.
But I think even more so, some organizations just aren't dedicating people to finding problems. You can still exploit Android, even though it's powered by Google and Linux. Intel has issues with its processor designs. Apple had a bug a year or so ago where anyone could log in as root. And these are the companies that supposedly have the best developers and essentially unlimited resources.
Is there anybody out there that actually trusts Facebook (except the people who work for Facebook)? At this point, aren't people in the position where they don't trust (or even like, or enjoy) Facebook, but quitting it altogether isn't an appealing option either due to how integral that platform is to communications and their daily lives?
Google and Apple are slightly different: I'm sure there are large numbers of people that do entirely trust (rightly or wrongly) Google and Apple.
That's exactly my feeling on this as well. It seems much more likely that you could use this to crash a device much more than you could ever use it to perform an attack (since you don't know exactly which cells your memory is in or what the neighbors look like). I'm still not even convinced the Spectre/Meltdown bugs are actually useful in the real world despite all of the hype. To me, a lot of these vulnerabilities boil down to "Oh if you let arbitrary code run, it can run other arbitrary code". Unless you can show an exploit that involves a browser visiting a malicious URL in a real-world scenario, I think this is a lot of smoke.
For most of the companies listed, their entire business model is predicated on watching and recording every click and pageview online, and converting that into advertising (or selling that activity to other advertisers).
These companies can't possibly be trusted to guard our privacy, as our private behavior is their business.
The problem with this approach is it removes incentives to work. What if you are currently unemployed or underemployed? If this basic income pushes you up by $17,000, then it removes the incentive to find a better job until you find one that makes well in excess of $17,000. If the stipend is removed once you make about a certain amount, you're creating a disincentive to make that amount.
Giving everyone a smaller basic income (regardless of their current income) avoids that trap: You are still incented to work since you'd get the basic income plus whatever job income.
This seems doomed to failure. But since it is a limited, small experiment, it's still worthwhile to gather the data and try and measure the cost tradeoffs (such as, "At what income would a person need to work until the incentive to stay on the basic income goes away?" Hopefully this would provide real data.
Exactly. And if the order in which the data is inserted into Excel is essentially random, that's good enough. There is no fair or unfair if the number of applicants exceeds the quota and there is no opportunity to game the system (such as naming yourself Aaron A Aaronson to appear first, or something)
Well that's how democracy works. We elect representatives to pass legislation. If they don't pass legislation, then that might reflect the actual wishes of the voters. New reps can be elected (and will be in a few months), and those priorities can change.
Just because legislation isn't passed doesn't mean you can subvert the legislative process with unelected bureaucracies assumed responsibilties that aren't theirs.
Drug legalization is happening across this country NOT by bureaucracies or Supreme Court decisions, but by the legislative process. That's the way it should happen in a republic.
Instead of relying on the FCC using a shakey legal foundation to enforce net neutrality, Congress should pass an actual law laying out exactly what should and shouldn't occur, and assign an agency to oversee. The problem with the approach from the past few years is the FCC or FTC trying to assume this responsibility without Congress having specifically authorized it. Congress never passed laws granting the FCC to authorize ISPs under Title II, etc.
Congress should pass comprehensive net neutrality regulations and lay out exactly what needs to happen, and assign responsibilities. There's too much hemming and hawing over the FCC rather than going through the legislative process. I believe people should stop asking the FCC to change it's mind since the FCC (not backed by legislation to oversee NN) can just change it's mind in the future when the next administration comes in. Legislation is the right approach to this, not bureaucracies.
Right, but it's better than $800. To me (a proud owner of the Moto G5 Plus), there is no reason to ever spend more than $300 on a phone anymore. They don't have better battery life, they don't have better cameras (excepting the iPhone) and they don't look visually better (except for lame gimmicks like rounded screen edges).
While the top-line phones with the Snapdragon 8xx get all of the raves for performance (especially when benchmarking) to me, the 6xx is where really compelling phones are. You get good-enough performance with long-lasting battery life AND your phone won't feel like it's on fire during heavy use (cough...gaming...cough). The performance differences between $800 phones and $200 is basically negligible at this point, and it's the 6xx chips that allow that.
This new 710 could be a real game-changer in that regard. Great performance but not trying to max out performance just to please the benchmarkers over at Tom's or Anand or wherever.
The quote expressing skepticism is commiting a slight logical fallacy: Just because this might not be THE single answer doesn't mean it can't be PART of the solution. Anyone who thinks there is a single best solution to CO2 emissions is likely to be extremely disappointed.
The most likely solution is going to be a collection of initiatives such as cutting emissions, switching from coal to natural gas, using nuclear energy + wind + solar, geoengineering, creating carbon sinks, painting roofs/roads/whatever white, reducing deforestation, etc. It's very possible the winners of this contest could provide 5% of the solution, and that 5% (which I just made up) could be a very useful addition to the complete solution.
It's great that XPRIZE is putting up $20 million for contests like this.
OR, they could compete by saying "Hey, elite gamers! Join our ISP because have special gaming-oriented optimizations in place!" The point is, they could do either thing but there is room for competition, feedback etc.
What rational argument is there for someone watching cat videos on Youtube to have the same network prioritization as an elite gamer playing Fortnite or Counterstrike?
I would prefer my ISP to prioritize gaming traffic ahead of other traffic: Youtube / Netflix / Facebook / bittorrent don't have the same latency requirements as online games. In fact, it makes sense to me that gamers should prefer a net neutrality repeal because it would now allow prioritization of that.
With complete net neutrality, traffic isn't supposed to be discriminated against when in fact it is a situation like this where it makes sense.
The counter-argument is "OH well, this will force ISPs to invest in improving network connections for all content", etc, etc. But that confuses ping latency with bandwidth.
If we look at truly disturbed people (such as those committing mass shootings or school shootings, etc), there are very very few of these people in a country of 350,000,000. Now this research could be entirely accurate when applying conclusions to your average 18-34 year old. But that doesn't necessarily mean that mentally disturbed people (if given the same daily exposure to video games as the test subjects) wouldn't be negatively impacted.
It's very possible that there is an effect, it's just a broad effect. Most people who try drugs don't get addicted to them: But those who are genetically predisposed to addiction will are much more likely to get addicted. (This is backed up by seeing that alcoholism is partially inherited).
I'm not proposing a policy change, or any changes in video games. But what would be interesting is to identify at-risk individuals (broken homes, lower IQ, prone to violence, lack of self-control) and measure the effects of daily violent game play vs what this test did, and measured average individuals.
I completely agree. If cryptocurrencies are going to take off, it seems unlikely that it will be Bitcoin that will stand the test of time and become valuable. The processing overhead, the vast amounts of electricity necessary to maintain the blockchain, the high transaction costs, the latency between sending bitcoins and the ledge actualizing that trade, etc.
I think it's likely that all of the current cryptocurrencies are worth $0.00, and if there is going to be a good one, it probably doesn't exist yet.
What's interesting about the debate over net neutrality is how much it focusing on the infrastructure of transmitting data instead of the platforms that now control all of our data. When it comes to Facebook/Apple/Google/Amazon/Twitter/Instagra/Youtube/Netflix, so much of our data and daily activity is centered around those platforms. We've seen it recently where people get thrown off Youtube or Twitter for incendiary comments or violating terms of service. I hate racists, but Cloudflare shutting down the Daily Stormer (or whatever it was called) is concerning.
But what isn't discussed is that those companies so dominate the internet in terms of engagement and content that being kicked off for violating those company's vague terms of service is tantamount to being thrown off the internet. If you made videos that generated income on Youtube one day, but they demonetize you the next, it's akin to being thrown off the internet (slight hyperbole, but still).
So yes, these dominant platforms do need to be regulated, not only because of their addictive nature but the overall influence they have as platforms controlling which information we do and don't see.
I enjoyed Bright, Warcraft and King Arthur, despite all 3 getting savaged by critics (and the latter two mostly being disappointments in the US or worldwide). The problem with these movies is they are not 4 quadrant tentpole movies. Warcraft and King Arthur especially were heavy fantasy, as opposed to Lord of the Rings which has broad appeal.
Bright and Warcraft had extensive fantasy world-building, and it's just not something that appeals to everyone. My wife walked in the room while I was watching Warcraft and rolled her eyes so hard I was afraid she'd faint. BUT THAT'S OKAY. Not every movie is for everyone, something that gets lost when comparing critic reviews to audiences. Ironman and the recent Spiderman had broad appeal across genders and age groups. The DC movies did not, but were enjoyed by the very audience the movie was geared towards.
It's not good enough to distill a movie to a single numeric value when there are so many disparate audiences. So the Netflix exec is entirely right: Bright can be both savaged by critics and loved by audiences, but what he might not realize is that it's not loved by ALL audiences, but by fans of this particular genre. What's great about a movie like Bright is that it went full-bore into its world-building and that's going to have lasting appeal to fantasy fans, as opposed to being watered down.
I think this idea of the Doomsday clock being soooo close to midnight reveals just how useless a measurement of crisis it actually is. They're suggesting that a global nuclear holocaust has never been more likely? More likely than during the Cuban Missile Crisis? Than when the president of China urged President Nixon to join him in nuking Russia? Closer than when Pakistan and India took turns testing nukes underground in the early 2000's? All of those years of the cold war where both the US and USSR had nuclear-armed bombers flying all around?
The only location where a nuclear event is likely to take place would be in North Korea: If any event took place, it would have to be a limited attack by the North Korea, prompting a US response. But that isn't to suggest an entire global nuclear winter would necessarily follow.
This is nothing but attention-seeking for the organization behind the clock and in no way measures the actual threat of a nuclear doomsday.
Perhaps I'm being a bit paranoid, but to me this suggests they're creating a backup NOT because of the USA's control over DNS, but as a backup for if they were to attack the existing DNS infrastructure. Current DNS providers should take this news as a reason to further invest in hardening their systems, and possibly pushing for bug bounties to bring vulnerabilities to light. Especially in the wake of various NSA / CIA toolkits getting exposed, there could be existing vulnerabilities known to government agencies that are unknown to internet infrastructure providers.
Correction to your headline: They're not burning too much coal, which makes it sound like they're wasting coal by burning too much. In fact, this is just the opposite. The amount of coal they're burning is the amount necessary to provide 40% of the electricity to their country. A more accurate headline would be "Despite their reputation as a leader in renewable energy, Germany is actually burning more coal than most other European countries".
Germany is running out of reliable sources of power generation: If not coal or nuclear, then natural gas would be a good choice. But do they have the political capital to switch from one fossil fuel to another?
The problem I have with this approach is that it still relies on a human viewing the video, flagging it (instead of just clicking away quickly), content moderators intervening, etc. During that time, however, more kids could be exposed to these types of videos.
Instead, for Youtube Kids, it would be better for parents and kids to have a videos go through a proactive approval process before they are shown. Google obviously doesn't want this: They want magic algorithms to avoid having human review every video for scalability and monetary reason. But I think this process is flawed for Youtube Kids (I'm not as concerned about Youtube proper). Google makes money from these videos, but they want essentially zero responsibility for the content.
Note that there is still room for parody and disturbing videos involving kids characters. I'm fine with that. What these articles are referring to, however, are video creators intentionally gaming the system to get their videos past the Youtube Kids filters in order to get views.
Google needs to step up and be proactive if they want Youtube Kids to actually be reliable instead of a wild west shitshow of scary content.
Considering the high cost of these vehicles (especially Teslas), the effect of the current subsidy system is to transfer tax dollars to the already well-off. There are no middle or low-income families that drive these vehicles, only upper-class. And especially with the Teslas, these vehicles are not only a form of transportation, but also status symbols.
(Full disclosure: I got about $2000 when I bought a Prius back in 2005 or so. Perhaps I'm a hypocrite, but the subsidy made a bit more sense for Priuses as they helped close the gap in price between them and equivalent cars, like a Civic or Camry or Taurus. But subsidizing $75,000 cars for the upper class makes no sense)
See, I think it's fair for folks (like me) who don't have deep experience in a language to dislike it. If you initially showed me an average piece of Perl script, it would make me shudder and I would struggle to work through it. Like you said, "typical horror, fades in a few days". I hate that feeling.
Perl is also one of those languages where I'm hitting up Stack Overflow for writing every single bloody line of code, and I wonder if that's where a lot of dislike comes in.
Also, I think it's worth pointing out that 'dislike' doens't mean 'hate'. I dislike (but don't hate) Perl, and I'm guessing some of the above data suggests the same. It would be interesting to get a poll of "Which language would you most like to expunge from the universe?"
Slashdot Mirror
To me, the most interesting development in phones has been the incredibly value in the sub-$300 price, as evidenced by Motorola's various phones, Huawei, Honor, OnePlus, etc.
At the top end, perhaps prices will continue to climb but that certainly doesn't imply all prices will increase. The top tier phones will be luxury items for a certain segment of the market, but the overall trend in terms of phones being shipped has been the amount of value being delivered in the and mid and low price tiers, and that should be heart-warming for consumers. That $1000 phone might be better or the best, but it won't be $700 better than the Moto G6 or similar phone.
This is exactly right. It's not about open vs closed source, but eyeballs. For instance, take the HeartBleed / OpenSSL bugs from a few years ago. OpenSSL is used extremely often and all over the place, including by Google, Facebook, etc. But it had vulnerabilities in it that had existed for years and years, and it was because OpenSSL was really only being maintained by a handful of people.
But I think even more so, some organizations just aren't dedicating people to finding problems. You can still exploit Android, even though it's powered by Google and Linux. Intel has issues with its processor designs. Apple had a bug a year or so ago where anyone could log in as root. And these are the companies that supposedly have the best developers and essentially unlimited resources.
Is there anybody out there that actually trusts Facebook (except the people who work for Facebook)? At this point, aren't people in the position where they don't trust (or even like, or enjoy) Facebook, but quitting it altogether isn't an appealing option either due to how integral that platform is to communications and their daily lives?
Google and Apple are slightly different: I'm sure there are large numbers of people that do entirely trust (rightly or wrongly) Google and Apple.
That's exactly my feeling on this as well. It seems much more likely that you could use this to crash a device much more than you could ever use it to perform an attack (since you don't know exactly which cells your memory is in or what the neighbors look like). I'm still not even convinced the Spectre/Meltdown bugs are actually useful in the real world despite all of the hype. To me, a lot of these vulnerabilities boil down to "Oh if you let arbitrary code run, it can run other arbitrary code". Unless you can show an exploit that involves a browser visiting a malicious URL in a real-world scenario, I think this is a lot of smoke.
For most of the companies listed, their entire business model is predicated on watching and recording every click and pageview online, and converting that into advertising (or selling that activity to other advertisers).
These companies can't possibly be trusted to guard our privacy, as our private behavior is their business.
The problem with this approach is it removes incentives to work. What if you are currently unemployed or underemployed? If this basic income pushes you up by $17,000, then it removes the incentive to find a better job until you find one that makes well in excess of $17,000. If the stipend is removed once you make about a certain amount, you're creating a disincentive to make that amount.
Giving everyone a smaller basic income (regardless of their current income) avoids that trap: You are still incented to work since you'd get the basic income plus whatever job income.
This seems doomed to failure. But since it is a limited, small experiment, it's still worthwhile to gather the data and try and measure the cost tradeoffs (such as, "At what income would a person need to work until the incentive to stay on the basic income goes away?" Hopefully this would provide real data.
Exactly. And if the order in which the data is inserted into Excel is essentially random, that's good enough. There is no fair or unfair if the number of applicants exceeds the quota and there is no opportunity to game the system (such as naming yourself Aaron A Aaronson to appear first, or something)
Well that's how democracy works. We elect representatives to pass legislation. If they don't pass legislation, then that might reflect the actual wishes of the voters. New reps can be elected (and will be in a few months), and those priorities can change.
Just because legislation isn't passed doesn't mean you can subvert the legislative process with unelected bureaucracies assumed responsibilties that aren't theirs.
Drug legalization is happening across this country NOT by bureaucracies or Supreme Court decisions, but by the legislative process. That's the way it should happen in a republic.
Instead of relying on the FCC using a shakey legal foundation to enforce net neutrality, Congress should pass an actual law laying out exactly what should and shouldn't occur, and assign an agency to oversee. The problem with the approach from the past few years is the FCC or FTC trying to assume this responsibility without Congress having specifically authorized it. Congress never passed laws granting the FCC to authorize ISPs under Title II, etc.
Congress should pass comprehensive net neutrality regulations and lay out exactly what needs to happen, and assign responsibilities. There's too much hemming and hawing over the FCC rather than going through the legislative process. I believe people should stop asking the FCC to change it's mind since the FCC (not backed by legislation to oversee NN) can just change it's mind in the future when the next administration comes in. Legislation is the right approach to this, not bureaucracies.
Right, but it's better than $800. To me (a proud owner of the Moto G5 Plus), there is no reason to ever spend more than $300 on a phone anymore. They don't have better battery life, they don't have better cameras (excepting the iPhone) and they don't look visually better (except for lame gimmicks like rounded screen edges).
While the top-line phones with the Snapdragon 8xx get all of the raves for performance (especially when benchmarking) to me, the 6xx is where really compelling phones are. You get good-enough performance with long-lasting battery life AND your phone won't feel like it's on fire during heavy use (cough...gaming...cough). The performance differences between $800 phones and $200 is basically negligible at this point, and it's the 6xx chips that allow that.
This new 710 could be a real game-changer in that regard. Great performance but not trying to max out performance just to please the benchmarkers over at Tom's or Anand or wherever.
The quote expressing skepticism is commiting a slight logical fallacy: Just because this might not be THE single answer doesn't mean it can't be PART of the solution. Anyone who thinks there is a single best solution to CO2 emissions is likely to be extremely disappointed.
The most likely solution is going to be a collection of initiatives such as cutting emissions, switching from coal to natural gas, using nuclear energy + wind + solar, geoengineering, creating carbon sinks, painting roofs/roads/whatever white, reducing deforestation, etc. It's very possible the winners of this contest could provide 5% of the solution, and that 5% (which I just made up) could be a very useful addition to the complete solution.
It's great that XPRIZE is putting up $20 million for contests like this.
OR, they could compete by saying "Hey, elite gamers! Join our ISP because have special gaming-oriented optimizations in place!" The point is, they could do either thing but there is room for competition, feedback etc.
What rational argument is there for someone watching cat videos on Youtube to have the same network prioritization as an elite gamer playing Fortnite or Counterstrike?
I would prefer my ISP to prioritize gaming traffic ahead of other traffic: Youtube / Netflix / Facebook / bittorrent don't have the same latency requirements as online games. In fact, it makes sense to me that gamers should prefer a net neutrality repeal because it would now allow prioritization of that.
With complete net neutrality, traffic isn't supposed to be discriminated against when in fact it is a situation like this where it makes sense.
The counter-argument is "OH well, this will force ISPs to invest in improving network connections for all content", etc, etc. But that confuses ping latency with bandwidth.
If we look at truly disturbed people (such as those committing mass shootings or school shootings, etc), there are very very few of these people in a country of 350,000,000. Now this research could be entirely accurate when applying conclusions to your average 18-34 year old. But that doesn't necessarily mean that mentally disturbed people (if given the same daily exposure to video games as the test subjects) wouldn't be negatively impacted.
It's very possible that there is an effect, it's just a broad effect. Most people who try drugs don't get addicted to them: But those who are genetically predisposed to addiction will are much more likely to get addicted. (This is backed up by seeing that alcoholism is partially inherited).
I'm not proposing a policy change, or any changes in video games. But what would be interesting is to identify at-risk individuals (broken homes, lower IQ, prone to violence, lack of self-control) and measure the effects of daily violent game play vs what this test did, and measured average individuals.
Classic Apple. Never let users or usability stand in the way of elegant design.
I completely agree. If cryptocurrencies are going to take off, it seems unlikely that it will be Bitcoin that will stand the test of time and become valuable. The processing overhead, the vast amounts of electricity necessary to maintain the blockchain, the high transaction costs, the latency between sending bitcoins and the ledge actualizing that trade, etc.
I think it's likely that all of the current cryptocurrencies are worth $0.00, and if there is going to be a good one, it probably doesn't exist yet.
What's interesting about the debate over net neutrality is how much it focusing on the infrastructure of transmitting data instead of the platforms that now control all of our data. When it comes to Facebook/Apple/Google/Amazon/Twitter/Instagra/Youtube/Netflix, so much of our data and daily activity is centered around those platforms. We've seen it recently where people get thrown off Youtube or Twitter for incendiary comments or violating terms of service. I hate racists, but Cloudflare shutting down the Daily Stormer (or whatever it was called) is concerning.
But what isn't discussed is that those companies so dominate the internet in terms of engagement and content that being kicked off for violating those company's vague terms of service is tantamount to being thrown off the internet. If you made videos that generated income on Youtube one day, but they demonetize you the next, it's akin to being thrown off the internet (slight hyperbole, but still).
So yes, these dominant platforms do need to be regulated, not only because of their addictive nature but the overall influence they have as platforms controlling which information we do and don't see.
I enjoyed Bright, Warcraft and King Arthur, despite all 3 getting savaged by critics (and the latter two mostly being disappointments in the US or worldwide). The problem with these movies is they are not 4 quadrant tentpole movies. Warcraft and King Arthur especially were heavy fantasy, as opposed to Lord of the Rings which has broad appeal.
Bright and Warcraft had extensive fantasy world-building, and it's just not something that appeals to everyone. My wife walked in the room while I was watching Warcraft and rolled her eyes so hard I was afraid she'd faint. BUT THAT'S OKAY. Not every movie is for everyone, something that gets lost when comparing critic reviews to audiences. Ironman and the recent Spiderman had broad appeal across genders and age groups. The DC movies did not, but were enjoyed by the very audience the movie was geared towards.
It's not good enough to distill a movie to a single numeric value when there are so many disparate audiences. So the Netflix exec is entirely right: Bright can be both savaged by critics and loved by audiences, but what he might not realize is that it's not loved by ALL audiences, but by fans of this particular genre. What's great about a movie like Bright is that it went full-bore into its world-building and that's going to have lasting appeal to fantasy fans, as opposed to being watered down.
I think this idea of the Doomsday clock being soooo close to midnight reveals just how useless a measurement of crisis it actually is. They're suggesting that a global nuclear holocaust has never been more likely? More likely than during the Cuban Missile Crisis? Than when the president of China urged President Nixon to join him in nuking Russia? Closer than when Pakistan and India took turns testing nukes underground in the early 2000's? All of those years of the cold war where both the US and USSR had nuclear-armed bombers flying all around?
The only location where a nuclear event is likely to take place would be in North Korea: If any event took place, it would have to be a limited attack by the North Korea, prompting a US response. But that isn't to suggest an entire global nuclear winter would necessarily follow.
This is nothing but attention-seeking for the organization behind the clock and in no way measures the actual threat of a nuclear doomsday.
Perhaps I'm being a bit paranoid, but to me this suggests they're creating a backup NOT because of the USA's control over DNS, but as a backup for if they were to attack the existing DNS infrastructure. Current DNS providers should take this news as a reason to further invest in hardening their systems, and possibly pushing for bug bounties to bring vulnerabilities to light. Especially in the wake of various NSA / CIA toolkits getting exposed, there could be existing vulnerabilities known to government agencies that are unknown to internet infrastructure providers.
Correction to your headline: They're not burning too much coal, which makes it sound like they're wasting coal by burning too much. In fact, this is just the opposite. The amount of coal they're burning is the amount necessary to provide 40% of the electricity to their country. A more accurate headline would be "Despite their reputation as a leader in renewable energy, Germany is actually burning more coal than most other European countries".
Germany is running out of reliable sources of power generation: If not coal or nuclear, then natural gas would be a good choice. But do they have the political capital to switch from one fossil fuel to another?
The problem I have with this approach is that it still relies on a human viewing the video, flagging it (instead of just clicking away quickly), content moderators intervening, etc. During that time, however, more kids could be exposed to these types of videos.
Instead, for Youtube Kids, it would be better for parents and kids to have a videos go through a proactive approval process before they are shown. Google obviously doesn't want this: They want magic algorithms to avoid having human review every video for scalability and monetary reason. But I think this process is flawed for Youtube Kids (I'm not as concerned about Youtube proper). Google makes money from these videos, but they want essentially zero responsibility for the content.
Note that there is still room for parody and disturbing videos involving kids characters. I'm fine with that. What these articles are referring to, however, are video creators intentionally gaming the system to get their videos past the Youtube Kids filters in order to get views.
Google needs to step up and be proactive if they want Youtube Kids to actually be reliable instead of a wild west shitshow of scary content.
Considering the high cost of these vehicles (especially Teslas), the effect of the current subsidy system is to transfer tax dollars to the already well-off. There are no middle or low-income families that drive these vehicles, only upper-class. And especially with the Teslas, these vehicles are not only a form of transportation, but also status symbols.
(Full disclosure: I got about $2000 when I bought a Prius back in 2005 or so. Perhaps I'm a hypocrite, but the subsidy made a bit more sense for Priuses as they helped close the gap in price between them and equivalent cars, like a Civic or Camry or Taurus. But subsidizing $75,000 cars for the upper class makes no sense)
See, I think it's fair for folks (like me) who don't have deep experience in a language to dislike it. If you initially showed me an average piece of Perl script, it would make me shudder and I would struggle to work through it. Like you said, "typical horror, fades in a few days". I hate that feeling.
Perl is also one of those languages where I'm hitting up Stack Overflow for writing every single bloody line of code, and I wonder if that's where a lot of dislike comes in.
Also, I think it's worth pointing out that 'dislike' doens't mean 'hate'. I dislike (but don't hate) Perl, and I'm guessing some of the above data suggests the same. It would be interesting to get a poll of "Which language would you most like to expunge from the universe?"