Invariably you'll get the slashdotters whining that N+1 is only an incremental improvement over N without looking at the fact that some people are still on N-5. Skylake may not be the end all be all but if you're coming from Core or Nehalem it's a noticeable improvement.
When these companies thrive on the most profitable segment of their customer base upgrading every 1-2 years, critiquing N+1 or N+2 incremental improvements is justified. Any company should easily be able to make an N+5 upgrade seem like the device can walk on water, so that is no achievement. But being able to keep people on a one or two year upgrade treadmill is what makes Apple the most profitable company in the world.
Its not too surprising Apple is only doing incremental improvements since its main flagship phone competitor (Samsung) is doing the same. I still have my Note 4 since I think the last two years of Samsung updates are lackluster. The only reason Apple made big updates in 2015 is because they were a couple years late on moving towards phablets.
I agree with the summary and add that both Apple and Samsung are dangerously close to making a three year replacement cycle the norm. That's good for my wallet I guess.
You're just using the word "humanity" differently. The grandparent was talking about humans, you're talking about the human species. Yes of course autonomous killing machines are a threat to humans, no of course they're not going to lead to our extinction.
There are different ways of using the word humanity, but they are all very all-encompassing and never mean just a small subset of humans.
The comments could mean autonomous killing machines are a :
... threat to the totality of all humans.
... threat to the intrinsic qualities which make us human.
... threat to our capacity to be kind to other humans or animals.
... threat to the branches of learning that investigate human constructs or concerns.
In this case, it is pretty obvious saying autonomous killing machines are a threat to humanity holds the first meaning. If for instance someone said perfect virtual reality is a threat to our humanity, they would probably be referring to the second meaning listed above.
Autonomous killing machines are not a threat to humanity. General AI is the potential danger. A search engine with human level intelligence is nearly infinitely more dangerous than an autonomous drone armed with a few nuclear weapons.
This Pentagon chief does raise legitimate concerns about the morality of machines autonomously killing humans, but any claims these machines are a threat to humanity is grandstanding. Although it isn't clear from the article if the generals have actually said this or if the journalists added these extreme interpretations themselves.
I don't understand how Uber works, as I'm not a driver. I assumed you paid an Uber driver to take you from point A to point B for some amount. The driver kept some percent and the rest went to Uber.
How does Uber lose money on this transaction. Or, more to the point, how does Uber lose money on each ride?
The passenger pays the fare in the app, and the driver gets a percentage of the fare. In some instances, Uber will pay the driver more than the fare, otherwise known as ride subsidizing.
This is mostly done to get more drivers into a new market. Uber has a chicken or the egg problem in new markets (like China) so they need to pay a premium to drivers when there are few passengers. They might have to pay a driver $50 per ride because they will only have 2-3 rides per day, even though they only charge $25 per ride to the passenger. In this state there will usually be far more drivers than passengers, so the level of service is excellent. Soon more passengers install Uber in this city, and once drivers can get 10 fares per day their payment per ride can go down to $20. The price per ride can probably go up a little too since they don't have to undercut taxis as much once Uber becomes more ubiquitous.
Uber spent around a billion dollars per year trying to break into the China market this way (plus many other similar strategies and marketing costs).
How can a taxi company with literally no expenses except for keeping a few servers running run a loss in the billions?
Uber spends far more money on marketing and ride subsidies than on running their servers. They undercut taxi companies by simply losing money on each ride in many markets. The claim is their costs would go down once economy of scale raises, but there is also a good chance prices would go up significantly if they ever win their battle with taxi companies.
Thing is: Gawker didn't know that and thought they were on firm legal ground. If they knew this would happen they wouldn't have done it. This is the problem: You don't find out if you're right or wrong until you've paid lawyers millions of dollars. Shouldn't be like that.
Gawker knew it was pushing boundaries of the law. I'd agree that no one could have claimed with 100% certainty which way this case would go three years ago when they first ignored a judge's order, but that doesn't mean this result is some kind of big surprise either. When you break the law, even when you think the law is unjust, you accept the possibility of severe consequences.
The courts are a crapshoot.
This is why you settle, and why you don't try to make political or social commentary in our court system unless you are willing to lose everything. That is what lobbying is for.
Gawker knowingly put its existence in jeopardy by fighting this court case. They are not a babe in woods here.
“This is the result of climate change,” he said. “It’s only going to get worse.”
That is just bad journalism. He did say those words at some point in the discussion, but it is taken out of context. He says this statement briefly near the beginning but is interrupted, and then later clarifies with a more detailed explanation. He gives the explanation in the same discussion, so it isn't as if he made a gaffe and was trying to cover it up. He made it very clear exactly what he meant.
Or more accurately Bill Nye says "it is reasonable that these storms are connected to [climate change]", and the media cannot understand the difference between drawing a probable conclusion and drawing a definitive conclusion. Bill Nye never said this was absolutely because of climate change, just that climate change most likely had a significant impact on the magnitude of the rain. But that is too reasonable and we need a more inflammatory headline.
The problem isn't outsourcing, it is leadership that is incapable of articulating needs correctly.
This, and the tendency for company leadership to feel outsourcing means they can offload all responsibility for project success. This is especially true when consultants are brought in for a project when in house staff has no expertise in one or more major aspects of the project. It's as if management believes an advisory role also includes ensuring overall project success.
More likely just someone without either. These phones are obviously discretionary purchases so anyone being asinine enough to differentiate between need and want in this discussion is either not very bright or biased enough in some way to limit their rational thought. Obviously any feature someone "needs" in their smartphone is actually a "want" from a survival or overall life enjoyment standpoint, but that doesn't change the fact the device may need to have a feature for them to buy it.
Swillden was absolutely correct that the need vs want question was completely irrelevant to what is being discussed here. I can't remember the last time I purchased any good or service because I needed it, outside of health care related services that is.
The proper term is "hired car service." Nothing is being shared here, people are paying other people to drive them around.
You may disagree with entire concept of the new "sharing economy" as its called, but that doesn't change the general definition this industry is giving these services. Ride-sharing merely implies the car's primary purpose is as a person vehicle, and is only shared with others for side income. This is as opposed to buying a taxi cab for the express purpose of driving others for a living.
I would agree a hired car service is also a proper term for Uber, but that doesn't mean ride-sharing is an improper term. It can be both.
No, I don't think you get it at all. It is sharing if you were making the trip anyway.
My brother and I shared my parents' cars all the time while we went to different destinations, or even when only one of us needed a ride but couldn't without help (not 16 yet). Sharing the exact same trip is not the only way to share a vehicle.
I agree there is very little fundamentally different between ride sharing companies and taxis. Ride sharing is simply a way of providing a better (cheaper) service by finding drivers who don't need to make a living doing it, and bypassing onerous regulations, so they can offer far lower rates. Overall it creates a drastically better experience for anyone not currently employed by taxi companies, as evidenced by every single person I have ever talked to about their Uber vs taxi experiences. And if anecdotal evidence isn't good enough, as evidenced by their increasing market share.
I agree its a poor choice of terminology, as what they are really doing is "vehicle sharing." Although the word "ride" can be used colloquially as meaning someone's vehicle, such as the statement: "check out my new ride." Either way calling the company part of the sharing economy is still accurate.
Illinois was actually able to raise taxes from 3% to 5% temporarily (for 4 years), and did lower the rate at least to 3.75% when the four years were up. It did take a newly appointed Republican governor willing to let the state go without a budget for over a year to fight the Democrats on raising it back to 5% though (among other points of contention).
I would have given 5-1 odds the income tax rate would never go below 5% again back in 2011 but I would have been dead wrong.
So -- You favor throwing all of us who run only free software on open computer hardware into some sort of digital ghetto?
I don't think anyone is favoring it, but I certainly don't want progress stopped by even the tiniest degree to accommodate those who self-impose such restrictions on themselves. I'm also not concerned at all with how the Amish will be affected by technological progress if that helps put things in perspective.
This is literally the "Everyone I know drives a Ford, therefore Buick is a failing company" argument. You're on/., you're balls deep in a techie bubble where no one's ever seen a dollar bill or used a phone for a voice call or bought a book anywhere *except* amazon.
I did say my statement only applies to those affluent enough to have a credit card. Considering a third of Americans don't even have a credit card, and many purchases still must be done with a check / money order (such as rent / mortgage), its not surprising that half of transactions involve cash.
But we are on Slashdot here, so saying Amazon gift cards are any different from cash here is just being pedantic.
I will concede there are plenty of tinfoil hat conspiracy nuts who care if all of our transactions are tracked, but most people with the means to use digital currency vote with their actions (which show they don't care about the privacy implications).
Retirement as we know it is a very modern phenomena. As recently as 1880 78% of men over the age of 65 were still working, compared to around 20% today. We are already starting to see a trend towards the end of retirement since this number was closer to 10% in 1980.
The initial driving force which created our retirement system was the idea old people are worthless and need to get out of the way. It wasn't some kind of reward for years of hard work, it was only marketed that way. Our economy is already finding uses for older workers and by the time all baby boomers are retired I would be surprised if usage of older workers doesn't ramp up. Advisory or mentoring roles working 500 hours per year would be a great fit, for instance, and could give some supplemental income for those who didn't save enough money. And then there is the likely possibility medical technology improves so that 80 year old's can still function as 50 year old's (or even younger) in the workplace.
There will probably always be a form of disability insurance for those who cannot work for physical or mental reasons above a certain age. But for the rest of the elderly they may take long sabbaticals from time to time but full retirement will probably be a rarity.
Also, cash and Amazon gift cards aren't quite the same thing.
Physical cash is starting to have the same relationship to money as a picture of a 3.5" floppy disk has to saving data. It isn't completely phased out, but its really close for any affluent enough to have a credit card. For instance less than 3% of my spending is done with cash, and its only that high because my wife loves estate sales.
And what you completely and utterly fail to understand is that an imbalance in average SES doesn't automatically imply it's a race issue. Are you saying that a dirt poor white person is somehow better off than an equally poor black person?
I am absolutely saying this. Much better off. In fact poor black children have less than half the chance of upward income mobility as compared to poor white children. (source)
See above for a more detailed response, but race still plays a significant factor after economic factors are ruled out. That leaves social factors, which in this case is our relationship to race in this country.
See my response above for citations, but minorities really do have more trouble with income mobility than whites in similar economic situations. Twice as many relatively well off black children experience downward mobility than similar white children, and well under half as many poor black children see upward mobility when compared to similar white children.
We should certainly have programs which help all poor individuals, but that does not exclude racially targeted programs from being necessary as well.
If the real problem is that poor people need a hand... No need for policies to directly address race at all.
This is simply not backed up by facts. Four in five black children who started in the top three quintiles experienced downward mobility, compared with just two in five white children. Three in five white children who started in the bottom two quintiles experienced upward mobility, versus just one in four black children.
Minorities really do have more trouble with income mobility than whites in similar economic situations. Twice as many relatively well off black children experience downward mobility than similar white children, and well under half as many poor black children see upward mobility when compared to similar white children.
We should certainly have programs which help all poor individuals, but that does not exclude racially targeted programs from being necessary as well.
words eventually mean what most people accept them as meaning.
While that may be true, a very specific definition is required if you want to make assertions using certain words. Assertions such as "racism cannot be fought with racism" require incredibly specific and unbending definitions of the words used. By the traditional meaning of the word racism this assertion is probably correct, but using the more loose colloquial definition of racism is couldn't be farther from the truth.
Slashdot Mirror
Invariably you'll get the slashdotters whining that N+1 is only an incremental improvement over N without looking at the fact that some people are still on N-5. Skylake may not be the end all be all but if you're coming from Core or Nehalem it's a noticeable improvement.
When these companies thrive on the most profitable segment of their customer base upgrading every 1-2 years, critiquing N+1 or N+2 incremental improvements is justified. Any company should easily be able to make an N+5 upgrade seem like the device can walk on water, so that is no achievement. But being able to keep people on a one or two year upgrade treadmill is what makes Apple the most profitable company in the world.
Its not too surprising Apple is only doing incremental improvements since its main flagship phone competitor (Samsung) is doing the same. I still have my Note 4 since I think the last two years of Samsung updates are lackluster. The only reason Apple made big updates in 2015 is because they were a couple years late on moving towards phablets.
I agree with the summary and add that both Apple and Samsung are dangerously close to making a three year replacement cycle the norm. That's good for my wallet I guess.
You're just using the word "humanity" differently. The grandparent was talking about humans, you're talking about the human species. Yes of course autonomous killing machines are a threat to humans, no of course they're not going to lead to our extinction.
There are different ways of using the word humanity, but they are all very all-encompassing and never mean just a small subset of humans.
The comments could mean autonomous killing machines are a :
... threat to the totality of all humans.
... threat to the intrinsic qualities which make us human.
... threat to our capacity to be kind to other humans or animals.
... threat to the branches of learning that investigate human constructs or concerns.
In this case, it is pretty obvious saying autonomous killing machines are a threat to humanity holds the first meaning. If for instance someone said perfect virtual reality is a threat to our humanity, they would probably be referring to the second meaning listed above.
Autonomous killing machines are not a threat to humanity. General AI is the potential danger. A search engine with human level intelligence is nearly infinitely more dangerous than an autonomous drone armed with a few nuclear weapons.
This Pentagon chief does raise legitimate concerns about the morality of machines autonomously killing humans, but any claims these machines are a threat to humanity is grandstanding. Although it isn't clear from the article if the generals have actually said this or if the journalists added these extreme interpretations themselves.
Looks like Slashdot is tracking our posts as we type them, and submitting them for us if our session ends abruptly. I am not happy about this.
I don't understand how Uber works, as I'm not a driver. I assumed you paid an Uber driver to take you from point A to point B for some amount. The driver kept some percent and the rest went to Uber.
How does Uber lose money on this transaction. Or, more to the point, how does Uber lose money on each ride?
The passenger pays the fare in the app, and the driver gets a percentage of the fare. In some instances, Uber will pay the driver more than the fare, otherwise known as ride subsidizing.
This is mostly done to get more drivers into a new market. Uber has a chicken or the egg problem in new markets (like China) so they need to pay a premium to drivers when there are few passengers. They might have to pay a driver $50 per ride because they will only have 2-3 rides per day, even though they only charge $25 per ride to the passenger. In this state there will usually be far more drivers than passengers, so the level of service is excellent. Soon more passengers install Uber in this city, and once drivers can get 10 fares per day their payment per ride can go down to $20. The price per ride can probably go up a little too since they don't have to undercut taxis as much once Uber becomes more ubiquitous.
Uber spent around a billion dollars per year trying to break into the China market this way (plus many other similar strategies and marketing costs).
How can a taxi company with literally no expenses except for keeping a few servers running run a loss in the billions?
Uber spends far more money on marketing and ride subsidies than on running their servers. They undercut taxi companies by simply losing money on each ride in many markets. The claim is their costs would go down once economy of scale raises, but there is also a good chance prices would go up significantly if they ever win their battle with taxi companies.
Thing is: Gawker didn't know that and thought they were on firm legal ground. If they knew this would happen they wouldn't have done it. This is the problem: You don't find out if you're right or wrong until you've paid lawyers millions of dollars. Shouldn't be like that.
Gawker knew it was pushing boundaries of the law. I'd agree that no one could have claimed with 100% certainty which way this case would go three years ago when they first ignored a judge's order, but that doesn't mean this result is some kind of big surprise either. When you break the law, even when you think the law is unjust, you accept the possibility of severe consequences.
The courts are a crapshoot.
This is why you settle, and why you don't try to make political or social commentary in our court system unless you are willing to lose everything. That is what lobbying is for.
Gawker knowingly put its existence in jeopardy by fighting this court case. They are not a babe in woods here.
The article quotes Bill Nye as saying:
“This is the result of climate change,” he said. “It’s only going to get worse.”
That is just bad journalism. He did say those words at some point in the discussion, but it is taken out of context. He says this statement briefly near the beginning but is interrupted, and then later clarifies with a more detailed explanation. He gives the explanation in the same discussion, so it isn't as if he made a gaffe and was trying to cover it up. He made it very clear exactly what he meant.
Or more accurately Bill Nye says "it is reasonable that these storms are connected to [climate change]", and the media cannot understand the difference between drawing a probable conclusion and drawing a definitive conclusion. Bill Nye never said this was absolutely because of climate change, just that climate change most likely had a significant impact on the magnitude of the rain. But that is too reasonable and we need a more inflammatory headline.
It said socially responsible not financially irresponsible.
The problem isn't outsourcing, it is leadership that is incapable of articulating needs correctly.
This, and the tendency for company leadership to feel outsourcing means they can offload all responsibility for project success. This is especially true when consultants are brought in for a project when in house staff has no expertise in one or more major aspects of the project. It's as if management believes an advisory role also includes ensuring overall project success.
Who are you to tell people what they should want?
Someone with more brain than money?
More likely just someone without either. These phones are obviously discretionary purchases so anyone being asinine enough to differentiate between need and want in this discussion is either not very bright or biased enough in some way to limit their rational thought. Obviously any feature someone "needs" in their smartphone is actually a "want" from a survival or overall life enjoyment standpoint, but that doesn't change the fact the device may need to have a feature for them to buy it.
Swillden was absolutely correct that the need vs want question was completely irrelevant to what is being discussed here. I can't remember the last time I purchased any good or service because I needed it, outside of health care related services that is.
The proper term is "hired car service." Nothing is being shared here, people are paying other people to drive them around.
You may disagree with entire concept of the new "sharing economy" as its called, but that doesn't change the general definition this industry is giving these services. Ride-sharing merely implies the car's primary purpose is as a person vehicle, and is only shared with others for side income. This is as opposed to buying a taxi cab for the express purpose of driving others for a living.
I would agree a hired car service is also a proper term for Uber, but that doesn't mean ride-sharing is an improper term. It can be both.
No, I don't think you get it at all. It is sharing if you were making the trip anyway.
My brother and I shared my parents' cars all the time while we went to different destinations, or even when only one of us needed a ride but couldn't without help (not 16 yet). Sharing the exact same trip is not the only way to share a vehicle.
I agree there is very little fundamentally different between ride sharing companies and taxis. Ride sharing is simply a way of providing a better (cheaper) service by finding drivers who don't need to make a living doing it, and bypassing onerous regulations, so they can offer far lower rates. Overall it creates a drastically better experience for anyone not currently employed by taxi companies, as evidenced by every single person I have ever talked to about their Uber vs taxi experiences. And if anecdotal evidence isn't good enough, as evidenced by their increasing market share.
I agree its a poor choice of terminology, as what they are really doing is "vehicle sharing." Although the word "ride" can be used colloquially as meaning someone's vehicle, such as the statement: "check out my new ride." Either way calling the company part of the sharing economy is still accurate.
Illinois was actually able to raise taxes from 3% to 5% temporarily (for 4 years), and did lower the rate at least to 3.75% when the four years were up. It did take a newly appointed Republican governor willing to let the state go without a budget for over a year to fight the Democrats on raising it back to 5% though (among other points of contention).
I would have given 5-1 odds the income tax rate would never go below 5% again back in 2011 but I would have been dead wrong.
So -- You favor throwing all of us who run only free software on open computer hardware into some sort of digital ghetto?
I don't think anyone is favoring it, but I certainly don't want progress stopped by even the tiniest degree to accommodate those who self-impose such restrictions on themselves. I'm also not concerned at all with how the Amish will be affected by technological progress if that helps put things in perspective.
This is literally the "Everyone I know drives a Ford, therefore Buick is a failing company" argument. You're on /., you're balls deep in a techie bubble where no one's ever seen a dollar bill or used a phone for a voice call or bought a book anywhere *except* amazon.
I did say my statement only applies to those affluent enough to have a credit card. Considering a third of Americans don't even have a credit card, and many purchases still must be done with a check / money order (such as rent / mortgage), its not surprising that half of transactions involve cash.
But we are on Slashdot here, so saying Amazon gift cards are any different from cash here is just being pedantic.
I will concede there are plenty of tinfoil hat conspiracy nuts who care if all of our transactions are tracked, but most people with the means to use digital currency vote with their actions (which show they don't care about the privacy implications).
Retirement as we know it is a very modern phenomena. As recently as 1880 78% of men over the age of 65 were still working, compared to around 20% today. We are already starting to see a trend towards the end of retirement since this number was closer to 10% in 1980.
The initial driving force which created our retirement system was the idea old people are worthless and need to get out of the way. It wasn't some kind of reward for years of hard work, it was only marketed that way. Our economy is already finding uses for older workers and by the time all baby boomers are retired I would be surprised if usage of older workers doesn't ramp up. Advisory or mentoring roles working 500 hours per year would be a great fit, for instance, and could give some supplemental income for those who didn't save enough money. And then there is the likely possibility medical technology improves so that 80 year old's can still function as 50 year old's (or even younger) in the workplace.
There will probably always be a form of disability insurance for those who cannot work for physical or mental reasons above a certain age. But for the rest of the elderly they may take long sabbaticals from time to time but full retirement will probably be a rarity.
Also, cash and Amazon gift cards aren't quite the same thing.
Physical cash is starting to have the same relationship to money as a picture of a 3.5" floppy disk has to saving data. It isn't completely phased out, but its really close for any affluent enough to have a credit card. For instance less than 3% of my spending is done with cash, and its only that high because my wife loves estate sales.
And what you completely and utterly fail to understand is that an imbalance in average SES doesn't automatically imply it's a race issue. Are you saying that a dirt poor white person is somehow better off than an equally poor black person?
I am absolutely saying this. Much better off. In fact poor black children have less than half the chance of upward income mobility as compared to poor white children. (source)
See above for a more detailed response, but race still plays a significant factor after economic factors are ruled out. That leaves social factors, which in this case is our relationship to race in this country.
See my response above for citations, but minorities really do have more trouble with income mobility than whites in similar economic situations. Twice as many relatively well off black children experience downward mobility than similar white children, and well under half as many poor black children see upward mobility when compared to similar white children.
We should certainly have programs which help all poor individuals, but that does not exclude racially targeted programs from being necessary as well.
If the real problem is that poor people need a hand ... No need for policies to directly address race at all.
This is simply not backed up by facts. Four in five black children who started in the top three quintiles experienced downward mobility, compared with just two in five white children. Three in five white children who started in the bottom two quintiles experienced upward mobility, versus just one in four black children.
Minorities really do have more trouble with income mobility than whites in similar economic situations. Twice as many relatively well off black children experience downward mobility than similar white children, and well under half as many poor black children see upward mobility when compared to similar white children.
We should certainly have programs which help all poor individuals, but that does not exclude racially targeted programs from being necessary as well.
words eventually mean what most people accept them as meaning.
While that may be true, a very specific definition is required if you want to make assertions using certain words. Assertions such as "racism cannot be fought with racism" require incredibly specific and unbending definitions of the words used. By the traditional meaning of the word racism this assertion is probably correct, but using the more loose colloquial definition of racism is couldn't be farther from the truth.