The solution to all of this is the solution first taught to student pilots flying their first Cessna 172: fly the damned plane. Left hand on the yoke, right hand on the throttles, both feet on the rudders, and do that stick-and-yoke thing so many of them have forgotten because they think the computer is the best pilot in the cockpit.
If I had my way, the first thing I'd mandate is that all commercial pilots--including those flying the largest A-380 airplanes--spend at least a few hours a month flying the same Cessna 172 they learned in. That way they remain viscerally connected to flying by stick and yoke--and when the computer acts up, as it always seems to do at the worst moment in the cockpit, you can still look out the window, see that piece of cement in the distance, and put the airplane down where it's supposed to go.
Great points, and when in the 172 (or Cherokee) cover up the instruments and let them do some real flying. The problem with all the advanced avionics (or instrumentation in many industries) is we put to much faith in the instruments and have lot that fingerspitzengefuehl that tells us something is not quite right and we need to do something. Information overload can be an issue as well as we bombard pilots or operators with a lot of data they then try to process, as well as how the data is presented. It's not just aviation, TMI for example was caused by operators relying on faulty information and thus not properly diagnosing a minor problem that resulted in an much less desirable outcome.
If I could sign up for a service where everyone who calls me has to type a code received by text, I would sign up tomorrow. You have a spoofed number, you don't receive the text and you can't get thru. Calling from a landline or voip that can't receive texts, too bad, call me from your verified cell phone or contact me in another way. Most legitimate businesses don't actually call you anymore anyways. Most of my legitimate calls are from other cell phones.
I remember (vaguely) a service where the caller had to enter a number or say their name to get through, which pretty much eliminated rob-callers. One issue with 2FA is political calls - Congress exempts themselves from laws against robocalling and will still ant to be able to robocall you to let you know their opponent is laying scumbag who beats their dog and masticates in public...
Zyklon was invented (discovered) by Fritz Haber, a Jewish German scientist.
He was one of the main driving forces behind the use of poison gas in WW1.
A certain irony that his invention would be modified by Bayer to be odourless
as Zyklon B and thus more usable as a key component in the Holocaust.
Bayer were also instrumental in introducing Heroin as a 'superior' pain killer
(though they did not invent it).
Fritz Haber also invented the Haber process, still used to manufacture Ammonia,
one of the most important chemical processes for production of fertilizer. Also
explosives. The World is a confusing place....
The Fritz Haber story is an interesting one. A Nobel laureate for developing the Haber - Bosch process, he pioneered the use of poison gas in WWI and was decorated for his service and made a Captain by the Kaiser. His institute developed Zyklon-A as a fumigant. With the rise of the Nazis, Haber, despite his conversion to Christianity and military service, was stripped of his positions and eventually left Germany.
NB: The History series on Einstein had Faber's wife shoot herself in the house, she actually shot herself in the garden.
It's a toxic brand: I'm surprised it took that long. I mean, Bayer isn't called "IG Farben" for good reason. Bayer associates with "aspirin", which is good, right!?!
I guess it's better than to be associated with Heroin, which would not be good.
Interestingly, a friend of mine started only answering unknown numbers in Chinese. Spam calls after a while of that went down dramatically. And then he started getting spam calls in Chinese, but at least the volume went down massively.
He should try Klingon next, or maybe authentic frontier gibberish...
One of the reasons for that is to avoid businesses simply flitting between fly-by-night spam outfits and claiming ignorance of the problem.
Calls with scam-as-a-premise are invariably bilking the telcos by providing forged billing and routing data (that's a couple of levels lower than CLID), meaning that the telcos don't get their cut of termination revenue and in turn they're starting to sit up and pay attention to their origin.
My point exactly, the scammers re going to do whatever they can to avoid being identified. Thanks for pointing that out for those who insist the telcos can find them and are getting paid to terminate calls. If it costs enough I'm sure the telco's will find way to make it tougher to run scam calls.
In Europe caller pays, always.
Also, in Europe we (usually, but depends on the country) have a no-spam-call list service, and whoever calls a number on that list gets fiercely fined.
I’m guessing the caller pays is a bigger deterent as it woukd be tough to find, let alone fine, some non-EU soammer in a third world call center. OTOH, getting billed for thousands of calls would greatly impact or wipe out any profit; or EU telcos simply do not connect calls because they can’t get needed payment data. Alternatively, I’d imagine language to be another barrier as there is no assurance the person called speaks the caller’s language, whereas in the US you are pretty certain of getting an English speaker most of the time.
You guys are still paying for incoming calls, right? Here in Europe everyone picks up their phone, all the time, always. If we don't want to be called by a certain number we just add it to the blocking list.
Paying for incoming calls went away once unlimited calls/text became the norm except for some real cheap plans. Has caller pays and higher rates for mobiles gone away in Europe? that may limit the spam calls more than any laws since it would quickly become uneconomic to robo-spam a lot of numbers.
> We DO have laws against these sorts of spam calls in the US. We also have laws against people sending email spam too. Actually managing to enforce these laws is a different matter entirely.
No, it's really easy when it comes to phone calls - Got an illegal spam call? Report and person gets a hefty fine. Can't identify caller? Move punishment to the company that provides the call. Done.
There is no reason for someone dialling YOU to be anonymous to your telcom provider.
And no, there is no reason to make exceptions for any category of calls, be it political or non-profit.
That would work real well when it is sone off shore call center using VOIP and spoofing phone numbers. Spammers / scammers seem to like to use the same area code and first 3 digits to make calls appear local. My solution is to simply let al calls go to voicemail unless I recognize the caller. I get very few spam voicemails.
Guess we don't have to worry much about license plate readers if folks are willing to have a(nother)* GPS attached to them at all times.
Do folks really not think about the alternate applications of such gadgetry before they welcome them with open arms ?
*Smartphone attached to your hip being the other one.
There are promising not to track employees in the test fleet cars. I'm sure they will continue to not use the tracking features. Wanna buy a bridge?
$700 for the tag, $7/month for the privilege of providing you location data and no doubt a letter warning you to replace the tag if you manage to disable the GPS. The only up side is Jobs would not be able to run without a tag since the dealer could install and activate it before the car rolls out the door...
Not all states require a sticker on the plate which needs to be updated. I've had the same plates in New York since before 2008 on multiple cars and I haven't touched them.
I would guess more states will go that route so they can save the cost of printing and mailing a sticker; especially since it is easy to run a tag and see if it is expired, especially as the tag reading camera systems proliferate. Plates have proven to be a durable solution for a hundred years; I've seen plates over 80 years old on cars. You can bang a trailer or back over something and the bent plate is still readable, how will plates hold up the first time something dents them severely? This definitely appears to be an answer in search of a question.
Thailand should send back every device to the company who built it. Apple will receives thousand of containers of iPhone, MacBook, iGarbage,...
Apple already takes back devices, not sure what they do to recycle but take back laws would induce more design with recycling in mind since they would ultimately wind up with the scrap machines. EU car manufacturers made changes to basic materials and construction to make it easier to recycle vehicles when they get scrapped. Packaging take back laws change how items are packaged. However, as long as there is no cost to producing waste companies will pay limited attention to recycling.
I tell sites I am 22. Employers are thrilled when they find out I also have 30 years of experience; except those trying to prove there are no viable citizen/resident candidates.
Unless they've figured out a revolutionary new method of manufacture, they appear to be trying to drive the honest labs out of business so that people come back to the natural diamonds.
A monopolist slashing prices to drive competitors out of business to protect their monopoly? I'm shocked! Shocked to find that... What’s next? Marking them so when the recipent gets it appraised they find out it is a “fake diamond?”
Oh, for sure, there are schools dealing with more pressing issues. I'm just not convinced that offering C.S. as an option would steal time/resources from efforts to address those other issues. It's basically an issue of: "we can only offer a limited number of courses; what should be included and what shouldn't?" Replacing "something else" with C.S. needn't cost any more money or require hiring a dedicated C.S. teacher.
Fair enough. What would you replace? In addition, how are you sure it wouldn't require hiring a CS teacher? A good math teacher may not be able to teach CS anymore than someone who can teach CS would be able to teach math; plus you'd need to outfit and maintain a CS lab of some sort.
You don't need to understand a lick of programming to know how to use a computer anymore, much like you don't need to be an engineer or mechanic to operate an automobile and in another decade or so you won't even need to know how to drive one as that will have been abstracted away.
What you're proposing is just basic computer literacy, which is a wholly different animal than computer science. I'd argue that such a class is probably more beneficial than trying to teach everyone to program. Perhaps people might take better steps to protect their privacy online, be better at finding information, or be less vulnerable to phishing scams.
Exactly. Years ago, I took a course called "Chemistry, Society and Man" which looked at the impact, positive and negative, of chemistry on history. It showed how chemistry enables us to feed more people economically while simultaneously making it easier to manufacturer more and more powerful weapons to kill them (the Haber - Bosch process). Science is neutral, it's how it is used that matters. Courses that challenge students to consider the possibilities, and limitations, of computers on society would be more valuable than learning how to define a variable or pipe operations so as to save lines of code.
Like the idea of shaming schools/districts into offering CS classes. And I say that as someone who opposes making CS a required elective and/or graduation requirement. While not everybody should take CS in high school, it seems criminal that some kids are attending schools that don't even offer it.
I would guess some schools have more pressing problems they are trying too address than teaching CS. It would be great if every school had the resources, knowledgeable teachers and a good curriculum so they can offer a viable CS option; I would be curious to overlay the set of schools not offering CS and socio-economic status and see what sort of correlations exist.
Slashdot Mirror
The physics version...
The solution to all of this is the solution first taught to student pilots flying their first Cessna 172: fly the damned plane. Left hand on the yoke, right hand on the throttles, both feet on the rudders, and do that stick-and-yoke thing so many of them have forgotten because they think the computer is the best pilot in the cockpit.
If I had my way, the first thing I'd mandate is that all commercial pilots--including those flying the largest A-380 airplanes--spend at least a few hours a month flying the same Cessna 172 they learned in. That way they remain viscerally connected to flying by stick and yoke--and when the computer acts up, as it always seems to do at the worst moment in the cockpit, you can still look out the window, see that piece of cement in the distance, and put the airplane down where it's supposed to go.
Great points, and when in the 172 (or Cherokee) cover up the instruments and let them do some real flying. The problem with all the advanced avionics (or instrumentation in many industries) is we put to much faith in the instruments and have lot that fingerspitzengefuehl that tells us something is not quite right and we need to do something. Information overload can be an issue as well as we bombard pilots or operators with a lot of data they then try to process, as well as how the data is presented. It's not just aviation, TMI for example was caused by operators relying on faulty information and thus not properly diagnosing a minor problem that resulted in an much less desirable outcome.
If I could sign up for a service where everyone who calls me has to type a code received by text, I would sign up tomorrow. You have a spoofed number, you don't receive the text and you can't get thru. Calling from a landline or voip that can't receive texts, too bad, call me from your verified cell phone or contact me in another way. Most legitimate businesses don't actually call you anymore anyways. Most of my legitimate calls are from other cell phones.
I remember (vaguely) a service where the caller had to enter a number or say their name to get through, which pretty much eliminated rob-callers. One issue with 2FA is political calls - Congress exempts themselves from laws against robocalling and will still ant to be able to robocall you to let you know their opponent is laying scumbag who beats their dog and masticates in public...
How can you patent a seed????
Submit a patent application with the necessary paperwork.
Zyklon was invented (discovered) by Fritz Haber, a Jewish German scientist. He was one of the main driving forces behind the use of poison gas in WW1. A certain irony that his invention would be modified by Bayer to be odourless as Zyklon B and thus more usable as a key component in the Holocaust.
Bayer were also instrumental in introducing Heroin as a 'superior' pain killer (though they did not invent it).
Fritz Haber also invented the Haber process, still used to manufacture Ammonia, one of the most important chemical processes for production of fertilizer. Also explosives. The World is a confusing place....
The Fritz Haber story is an interesting one. A Nobel laureate for developing the Haber - Bosch process, he pioneered the use of poison gas in WWI and was decorated for his service and made a Captain by the Kaiser. His institute developed Zyklon-A as a fumigant. With the rise of the Nazis, Haber, despite his conversion to Christianity and military service, was stripped of his positions and eventually left Germany.
NB: The History series on Einstein had Faber's wife shoot herself in the house, she actually shot herself in the garden.
It's a toxic brand: I'm surprised it took that long. I mean, Bayer isn't called "IG Farben" for good reason. Bayer associates with "aspirin", which is good, right!?!
I guess it's better than to be associated with Heroin, which would not be good.
N.B. Trademarks can have interesting stories...
Pu RTG's put out everything from alphas to heavy fission gammas and neutrons
What? The Pu-238 decay chain is almost perfect because it's mostly alpha particles which are easier to shield against than betas.
Yes, but there are several challenges:
1. It gives off a lot of heat when i decays, which is what is used to power spacecraft wit Pu-238.
2. Manufacturing and disposing of batteries with it would be problematic due to ingestion dangers
3. It's created as a by product of bomb making or power production and thus is expensive and difficult to produce.
Buying a 100-year-old Tesla and having to replace the original battery.
You'd only have to replace half of the battery...
Interestingly, a friend of mine started only answering unknown numbers in Chinese. Spam calls after a while of that went down dramatically. And then he started getting spam calls in Chinese, but at least the volume went down massively.
He should try Klingon next, or maybe authentic frontier gibberish...
One of the reasons for that is to avoid businesses simply flitting between fly-by-night spam outfits and claiming ignorance of the problem.
Calls with scam-as-a-premise are invariably bilking the telcos by providing forged billing and routing data (that's a couple of levels lower than CLID), meaning that the telcos don't get their cut of termination revenue and in turn they're starting to sit up and pay attention to their origin.
My point exactly, the scammers re going to do whatever they can to avoid being identified. Thanks for pointing that out for those who insist the telcos can find them and are getting paid to terminate calls. If it costs enough I'm sure the telco's will find way to make it tougher to run scam calls.
In Europe caller pays, always. Also, in Europe we (usually, but depends on the country) have a no-spam-call list service, and whoever calls a number on that list gets fiercely fined.
I’m guessing the caller pays is a bigger deterent as it woukd be tough to find, let alone fine, some non-EU soammer in a third world call center. OTOH, getting billed for thousands of calls would greatly impact or wipe out any profit; or EU telcos simply do not connect calls because they can’t get needed payment data. Alternatively, I’d imagine language to be another barrier as there is no assurance the person called speaks the caller’s language, whereas in the US you are pretty certain of getting an English speaker most of the time.
You guys are still paying for incoming calls, right? Here in Europe everyone picks up their phone, all the time, always. If we don't want to be called by a certain number we just add it to the blocking list.
Paying for incoming calls went away once unlimited calls/text became the norm except for some real cheap plans. Has caller pays and higher rates for mobiles gone away in Europe? that may limit the spam calls more than any laws since it would quickly become uneconomic to robo-spam a lot of numbers.
Indeed 80% is much. I get calls from the Indian Microsoft employee informing me ... but for the rest most is under control as I am on the Robinson list
I know him. After 30 minutes of support he was screaming into the phone while I laughed at him.
> We DO have laws against these sorts of spam calls in the US. We also have laws against people sending email spam too. Actually managing to enforce these laws is a different matter entirely.
No, it's really easy when it comes to phone calls - Got an illegal spam call? Report and person gets a hefty fine. Can't identify caller? Move punishment to the company that provides the call. Done. There is no reason for someone dialling YOU to be anonymous to your telcom provider. And no, there is no reason to make exceptions for any category of calls, be it political or non-profit.
That would work real well when it is sone off shore call center using VOIP and spoofing phone numbers. Spammers / scammers seem to like to use the same area code and first 3 digits to make calls appear local. My solution is to simply let al calls go to voicemail unless I recognize the caller. I get very few spam voicemails.
"GPS enabled"
Guess we don't have to worry much about license plate readers if folks are willing to have a(nother)* GPS attached to them at all times. Do folks really not think about the alternate applications of such gadgetry before they welcome them with open arms ?
*Smartphone attached to your hip being the other one.
There are promising not to track employees in the test fleet cars. I'm sure they will continue to not use the tracking features. Wanna buy a bridge?
$700 for the tag, $7/month for the privilege of providing you location data and no doubt a letter warning you to replace the tag if you manage to disable the GPS. The only up side is Jobs would not be able to run without a tag since the dealer could install and activate it before the car rolls out the door...
Not all states require a sticker on the plate which needs to be updated. I've had the same plates in New York since before 2008 on multiple cars and I haven't touched them.
I would guess more states will go that route so they can save the cost of printing and mailing a sticker; especially since it is easy to run a tag and see if it is expired, especially as the tag reading camera systems proliferate. Plates have proven to be a durable solution for a hundred years; I've seen plates over 80 years old on cars. You can bang a trailer or back over something and the bent plate is still readable, how will plates hold up the first time something dents them severely? This definitely appears to be an answer in search of a question.
Thailand should send back every device to the company who built it. Apple will receives thousand of containers of iPhone, MacBook, iGarbage, ...
Apple already takes back devices, not sure what they do to recycle but take back laws would induce more design with recycling in mind since they would ultimately wind up with the scrap machines. EU car manufacturers made changes to basic materials and construction to make it easier to recycle vehicles when they get scrapped. Packaging take back laws change how items are packaged. However, as long as there is no cost to producing waste companies will pay limited attention to recycling.
I tell sites I am 22. Employers are thrilled when they find out I also have 30 years of experience; except those trying to prove there are no viable citizen/resident candidates.
Unless they've figured out a revolutionary new method of manufacture, they appear to be trying to drive the honest labs out of business so that people come back to the natural diamonds.
A monopolist slashing prices to drive competitors out of business to protect their monopoly? I'm shocked! Shocked to find that... What’s next? Marking them so when the recipent gets it appraised they find out it is a “fake diamond?”
There's no such thing as a flight for 50p!
A classic. Thanks for embedding it...
Will this apply to flights as well? I thought that plastic utensils there were generally regarded as a safety feature, not just a cheap convenience.
They can trash them instead of refuse; unless of course you are on a 50p flight...
I would guess some schools have more pressing problems they are trying too address than teaching CS.
Yeah, like "two", "to", and "too".
Grammar is for those two narrow minded too consider it is possible 10 have more than to alternatives.
Oh, for sure, there are schools dealing with more pressing issues. I'm just not convinced that offering C.S. as an option would steal time/resources from efforts to address those other issues. It's basically an issue of: "we can only offer a limited number of courses; what should be included and what shouldn't?" Replacing "something else" with C.S. needn't cost any more money or require hiring a dedicated C.S. teacher.
Fair enough. What would you replace? In addition, how are you sure it wouldn't require hiring a CS teacher? A good math teacher may not be able to teach CS anymore than someone who can teach CS would be able to teach math; plus you'd need to outfit and maintain a CS lab of some sort.
You don't need to understand a lick of programming to know how to use a computer anymore, much like you don't need to be an engineer or mechanic to operate an automobile and in another decade or so you won't even need to know how to drive one as that will have been abstracted away. What you're proposing is just basic computer literacy, which is a wholly different animal than computer science. I'd argue that such a class is probably more beneficial than trying to teach everyone to program. Perhaps people might take better steps to protect their privacy online, be better at finding information, or be less vulnerable to phishing scams.
Exactly. Years ago, I took a course called "Chemistry, Society and Man" which looked at the impact, positive and negative, of chemistry on history. It showed how chemistry enables us to feed more people economically while simultaneously making it easier to manufacturer more and more powerful weapons to kill them (the Haber - Bosch process). Science is neutral, it's how it is used that matters. Courses that challenge students to consider the possibilities, and limitations, of computers on society would be more valuable than learning how to define a variable or pipe operations so as to save lines of code.
Like the idea of shaming schools/districts into offering CS classes. And I say that as someone who opposes making CS a required elective and/or graduation requirement. While not everybody should take CS in high school, it seems criminal that some kids are attending schools that don't even offer it.
I would guess some schools have more pressing problems they are trying too address than teaching CS. It would be great if every school had the resources, knowledgeable teachers and a good curriculum so they can offer a viable CS option; I would be curious to overlay the set of schools not offering CS and socio-economic status and see what sort of correlations exist.