"The likelihood that this result occurred according to chance is approximately one in a billion,"
The problem with this statement is that no company bases its hiring process on *chance*.
So what if 73% of the 130 applicants were Asian? That leaves 27% of applicants that were not. Simply "being qualified" doesn't ensure you the job, especially one connected to government agencies. From 2010 to present, they hired 17 "non-Asian" and four Asian employees? What their hiring been like? Is this just at the Palo Alto HQ, or across the company's 13 other offices across the US and the globe? br/?
There is so much of this story that we're not getting. Honestly, unless they have an insider that blows the whistle on clearly discriminatory practices, I don't see much of a case.
Autonomous passenger aircraft has been a possibility for a *very* long time, but didn't take off (*cough*) for a few reasons. Firstly, it's only been recently that such technology could be integrated at a small enough level as to keep the weigh (and, hence, cost) low. Secondly, people like the fact that there's a human in control, even when that control is limited (as is that case with autopilot systems in airliners). Finally, the added complexity of VTOL aircraft compared to fixed wing makes such an endeavour on Uber's part a logistical and maintenance nightmare. The complexity of rotor systems, compared to engine/propeller combinations for fixed wing aircraft, can sometimes be difficult for someone trained in the field to wrap their head around (trust me on this one...).
The legislative dimension is also crippling. We *already* have a system of VTOL passenger transportation: helicopters. To tote people around for profit requires a commercial pilot's license. Is Uber going to demand that of pre-autonomous VTOL "drivers"? Also, "autonomous" doesn't mean *entirely autonomous*; there's still a human pilot capable of overriding control at any point, likely with the same restrictions as an onboard human operator (though I'm sure jurisdiction *may* vary on that). In short, I think uber's trying to slap their logo on the side of a solution for a problem no one has.
Uber thinks they're being innovative, when the reality is they're throwing shit at the wall and hoping something sticks.
So, ICANN loses centralized control over the DNS system. Big deal.
What would stop a wholly-American-controlled agency from simply establishing a new American-controlled DNS system that overlays the existing infrastructure? Absolutely nothing.
Hell, you or I can do this *right now*, by establishing our own DNS zone and force users within your territory to use *your* DNS root servers instead of those for the larger global Internet. Sure, you'll lack access to the larger global network, but at least you'll have all the control you want.
If only travellers had access to some form of transit that had well-regulated fare structures in place to avoid the supply-and-demand effects of Uber's surge pricing.
What a world it would be if people had another option!
> She said she "could not recall any briefing or training by State related to the retention of federal records or handling classified information," according to the FBI's notes of their July 2 interview with Clinton.
Insufficient. I've never received any briefing or training with respect to not murdering anyone, yet I'm expected to abide by the statutes that exist relating to such a topic. It sounds like she's trying to argue that ignorance of the law is an excuse not to follow it.
I spend my day editing peer-reviewed journal articles. People really need to understand what peer review means, and what it doesn't.
All peer review means is that someone in the respective field looked over the manuscript and didn't see anything *glaring* stand out that would disqualify it from publication. For example, if someone put "E=mc" for special relativity, peer review would catch that mistake and fix it, disqualify the paper, or send it back to the author to fix. However, it does NOT mean that the article is fact-checked or verified for accuracy or scientific rigor.
Peer review is far less important than *replication*, which is what EMDrive requires.
The FBI, of ALL agencies, should be the last to complain about encryption, especially with the skeletons in their own closet (namely, Hoover's widescale phone taps, for example). The last time I checked, it wasn't the job of the government, or the people, to make law enforcement's job *easy*. The FBI just doesn't want to have to actually *investigate* and do the legwork they used to before the age of mass communication.
There's a cost/benefit analysis to be made: calculate the harm caused by a very small minority of individuals who want to do the US harm, and compare that to the harm of caused by any organized crime group exploiting the backdoors the FBI wants to see in everything. I guarantee the harm caused by terrorists is so miniscule in comparison as to make a request to cripple widescale encryption tantamount to an attack on America, itself.
There are a number of ways of a citizen getting around such a court order. A few that instantly come to mind:
Two-factor authentication: The court may order me to turn over my password, but if I have a second factor (external to my phone/laptop/etc) to authenticate, the password, itself, won't be enough to unlock a damn thing.
Implement a duress failsafe: I'm surprised this isn't implemented more in software, to be honest. Effectively, have two passwords tied to a single login. If I log in with the "safe" password, everything logs in normally. If I login with my normal username (so as not to draw any undue attention or suspicion from law enforcement types), but enter the secondary, duress password, it cripples the data/device. Have it output a normal login process but, say, run rm -rf, or some other digital thermite equivalent.
Refuse: Given the option of turning over my password or going to jail, my response will likely be "Eat dicks." Fill the jails with contempt of court cases and make it an economical burden on the state to bother prosecuting such cases.
> New research seems to prove the theory that brainy people spend more time lazing around than their active counterparts.
> Findings from a US-based study seem to support the idea that people with a high IQ get bored less easily, leading them to spend more time engaged in thought.
Interesting that the study equates spending "more time engaged in thought" with "lazing around". Wait...no...not interesting, merely indicative of America's ongoing degradation of those with more than a shot glass worth of brains.
Turn the reporting on its head, and what do you have? "New research seems to prove the theory that less brainy people lack the ability to sit the fuck down and focus on a simple task."
> The findings of the study, published in the Journal of Health Psychology, were described as “highly significant” and “robust” in statistical terms.
Their findings may have been statistically significant among the 60 people in their sample, but you're going to have a difficult time convincing me that a sample size that small is "robust", in statistical terms.
This is a perfect manoeuver to peak against net neutrality rules.
"Well, porn *is* legal, so if we craft specific online channels, those who want evil, filthy smut can pay a premium for it."
This will be the first step in covering that slippery slope in Astroglide.
Why should policing today be any different than policing 100 years ago?
The idea of serving and protecting the community is actually a VERY recent dimension of policing. It's generally applied to serving and protecting the state, or at least the local aristocracy. Your interests don't matter; it's not your name at the bottom of their paycheque.
People forget that the world is a dangerous place, and as much as the government wants to snatch your liberties all for keeping you safe, *they can't*. Bad guys will find a way. They always have, always will. They're more resourceful because they have to be. Terrorists only have to get lucky once; law enforcement has to get lucky *every time* if they're going to live up to their promise of perfect security.
I suggest people accept the dangers of the world. So someone you don't know wants you dead because #Murica. Fine. Take your chances and realize you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning while winning the lottery and being eaten by a shark than you do of getting killed by a terrorist. The chances of being killed by a cop in your own neighbourhood is far higher.
Project MinE started a year before the Ice Bucket Challenge and the money provided to the project that was the direct result of the challenge is a fraction of what it's raised outside of the project.
To suggest the Ice Bucket Challenge funding was directly responsible for the results completely ignores how the funding of these kind of scientific endeavours really works.
"The terms of service required them to give up their first born, and if they don't yet have one, they get until 2050 to do so."
No one sees how this "joke" could come back and bite the company in the ass?
I'm waiting for someone to take them up on the terms and conditions, dropping off their first-born at the company's doorstep. I'd figure the parents are absolved of all responsibility for the child, having signed that responsibility away through the acceptance of the TOS. Let's get 1,000 other users onboard and drop their first-born off at the company. I bet you can do this up until the kid is 18.
Sounds, to me, like an easy way to get rid of moody teenagers...
I wonder if it would be possible to set up a series of these honeypots in order to detect potentially-malicious activity and craft a database of nodes "promoting" malicious activity. Using that data, shape Tor traffic to avoid malicious nodes in the network. Adopting the traffic-shaping would be voluntary, ascentral control over routing is dangerous, and the body operating the "checkpoints" could act transparently.
Not sure if the Tor protocol allows for it; this is just back-of-the-napkin thinking, but it would create a more robust, likely more secure, network.
"Several rightsholder groups argue that strong copyright protections are essential for the survival of their businesses."
What this means is they don't want to have to deal with someone else innovating and competing in their little corner of the economy. That's not good for business.
I'm not arguing for relinquishing the protections content producers have; "fair use" is narrowly defined for a reason: to ensure proper protections remain in place. What content producers don't want is to give legal protections to those operating within the bounds of fair use. That's just inherently wrong.
I don't get why people think that just because something is X today, that means there's excuse for it to be X tomorrow. There's no reason to expect, and less reason to demand, that.
Maybe you should try stepping out of your comfort zone occasionally.
You're missing a huge, vibrant world if you refuse to watch things you consider "repulsive"...
When science gets things wrong, others can step in an find the mistakes, re-test, illuminate, fix the problems, and get the science right.
Science *can* tell us how to live, and can tell us how to live *better*. By measuring the desires of the people, one can formulate a platform to achieve those desires. Then, as above, you use your measurements to allocate resources, determine the taxation needed to implement policy, etc, etc, allowing policy to be refined and optimized.
I think the problem is that rampant anti-intellectualism has taken hold in many places. People don't like admitting they don't know what they're talking about, especially by someone who *does* know what they're talking about. It requires inner reflection that reveals to one's own ego the degree of personal ignorance regarding subject X. No one's ego can deal with that, and the ego will do everything it can to protect and insulate itself.
It's important for the average consumer to realize that not all processing tasks are easily parallizable, and some downright aren't. In those cases, additional cores aren't going to give you much in the way speed increases. Of course, your average consumer *doesn't* realize that, and when they go to their favourite big-box store for a new computer, the sales associate isn't going to sit down and discuss the reality of the situation either.
The greatest shortcoming for Star Trek, I think, was that there was no explanation for how we got from the "pre-Trek" ear to embracing exploration and science for the sake of exploration and science. Sure, poverty in the Federation is gone, generally speaking, but the day-to-day issues aren't explained. What if I want to move to a new city? How does one just "get" an apartment in a no-money society?
To be fair, this isn't exactly how it works for non-Starfleet staff; we see the introduction of currency between species (latinum) and it's used amongst Federation civilians on more than one occasion. Cash-based trade still occurs, but the economics of it aren't factored into the broader Star Trek universe. As such a thing will have a direct impact on interpersonal dynamics, Star Trek really pushes this element down to a hidden level so the audience doesn't question the larger plot devices.
Assuming the possibility of even the most rudimentary AI sentience, these principles won't do much.
For example, if an AI, through its various sensors, can recognize itself in the context of its environment, then it can likely distinguish the resources it requires to remain functional. At that point, it's not a far stretch to suggest a value system developing based around those functional requirements. If that value system competes with that of humans, then you end up with a situation where the principle that AI *must* assist humanity goes out the window in order for the AI to protect itself.
I would suggest that *humans* learn to adapt to a future of complex AI. It's important for us to realize that we may have to share the same socio-political space with an entity (or entities) of comparable intelligence, but vastly different, competing needs. Sadly, humans aren't even good at doing this with *other humans*, if history is any indication.
"Do you want a computer to help decide a convict's fate?" asks Engadget...
Why not, *if* the algorithm is reasonably crafted? I think the controversy is that the algorithm in question took the probability of repeat offending into consideration. However, if certain metrics can be calculated, particularly with respect to culpability, victim impact, remorse, etc, then why shouldn't an algorithm be used to determine the optimum sentence?
While I'll be the first to state that I don't know what the standard would look like for such variables, they are all things that can be measured, modeled, analyzed and applied. By integrating an algorithm for optimal sentencing I think we could get rid of a ton of waste in the penal system incarcerating people who may not necessarily need to be incarcerated any longer (and do away with ridiculous minimum-sentencing garbage).
Slashdot Mirror
"The likelihood that this result occurred according to chance is approximately one in a billion,"
The problem with this statement is that no company bases its hiring process on *chance*.
So what if 73% of the 130 applicants were Asian? That leaves 27% of applicants that were not. Simply "being qualified" doesn't ensure you the job, especially one connected to government agencies. From 2010 to present, they hired 17 "non-Asian" and four Asian employees? What their hiring been like? Is this just at the Palo Alto HQ, or across the company's 13 other offices across the US and the globe?
br/? There is so much of this story that we're not getting. Honestly, unless they have an insider that blows the whistle on clearly discriminatory practices, I don't see much of a case.
Autonomous passenger aircraft has been a possibility for a *very* long time, but didn't take off (*cough*) for a few reasons. Firstly, it's only been recently that such technology could be integrated at a small enough level as to keep the weigh (and, hence, cost) low. Secondly, people like the fact that there's a human in control, even when that control is limited (as is that case with autopilot systems in airliners). Finally, the added complexity of VTOL aircraft compared to fixed wing makes such an endeavour on Uber's part a logistical and maintenance nightmare. The complexity of rotor systems, compared to engine/propeller combinations for fixed wing aircraft, can sometimes be difficult for someone trained in the field to wrap their head around (trust me on this one...).
The legislative dimension is also crippling. We *already* have a system of VTOL passenger transportation: helicopters. To tote people around for profit requires a commercial pilot's license. Is Uber going to demand that of pre-autonomous VTOL "drivers"? Also, "autonomous" doesn't mean *entirely autonomous*; there's still a human pilot capable of overriding control at any point, likely with the same restrictions as an onboard human operator (though I'm sure jurisdiction *may* vary on that). In short, I think uber's trying to slap their logo on the side of a solution for a problem no one has.
Uber thinks they're being innovative, when the reality is they're throwing shit at the wall and hoping something sticks.
So, ICANN loses centralized control over the DNS system. Big deal.
What would stop a wholly-American-controlled agency from simply establishing a new American-controlled DNS system that overlays the existing infrastructure? Absolutely nothing.
Hell, you or I can do this *right now*, by establishing our own DNS zone and force users within your territory to use *your* DNS root servers instead of those for the larger global Internet. Sure, you'll lack access to the larger global network, but at least you'll have all the control you want.
Well, how is she expected to collect money for damages if she just stays quiet?
Litigation destroys society.
If only travellers had access to some form of transit that had well-regulated fare structures in place to avoid the supply-and-demand effects of Uber's surge pricing.
What a world it would be if people had another option!
> She said she "could not recall any briefing or training by State related to the retention of federal records or handling classified information," according to the FBI's notes of their July 2 interview with Clinton.
Insufficient. I've never received any briefing or training with respect to not murdering anyone, yet I'm expected to abide by the statutes that exist relating to such a topic. It sounds like she's trying to argue that ignorance of the law is an excuse not to follow it.
I spend my day editing peer-reviewed journal articles. People really need to understand what peer review means, and what it doesn't.
All peer review means is that someone in the respective field looked over the manuscript and didn't see anything *glaring* stand out that would disqualify it from publication. For example, if someone put "E=mc" for special relativity, peer review would catch that mistake and fix it, disqualify the paper, or send it back to the author to fix. However, it does NOT mean that the article is fact-checked or verified for accuracy or scientific rigor.
Peer review is far less important than *replication*, which is what EMDrive requires.
The FBI, of ALL agencies, should be the last to complain about encryption, especially with the skeletons in their own closet (namely, Hoover's widescale phone taps, for example). The last time I checked, it wasn't the job of the government, or the people, to make law enforcement's job *easy*. The FBI just doesn't want to have to actually *investigate* and do the legwork they used to before the age of mass communication. There's a cost/benefit analysis to be made: calculate the harm caused by a very small minority of individuals who want to do the US harm, and compare that to the harm of caused by any organized crime group exploiting the backdoors the FBI wants to see in everything. I guarantee the harm caused by terrorists is so miniscule in comparison as to make a request to cripple widescale encryption tantamount to an attack on America, itself.
There are a number of ways of a citizen getting around such a court order. A few that instantly come to mind:
Two-factor authentication: The court may order me to turn over my password, but if I have a second factor (external to my phone/laptop/etc) to authenticate, the password, itself, won't be enough to unlock a damn thing.
Implement a duress failsafe: I'm surprised this isn't implemented more in software, to be honest. Effectively, have two passwords tied to a single login. If I log in with the "safe" password, everything logs in normally. If I login with my normal username (so as not to draw any undue attention or suspicion from law enforcement types), but enter the secondary, duress password, it cripples the data/device. Have it output a normal login process but, say, run rm -rf, or some other digital thermite equivalent.
Refuse: Given the option of turning over my password or going to jail, my response will likely be "Eat dicks." Fill the jails with contempt of court cases and make it an economical burden on the state to bother prosecuting such cases.
> New research seems to prove the theory that brainy people spend more time lazing around than their active counterparts.
> Findings from a US-based study seem to support the idea that people with a high IQ get bored less easily, leading them to spend more time engaged in thought.
Interesting that the study equates spending "more time engaged in thought" with "lazing around". Wait...no...not interesting, merely indicative of America's ongoing degradation of those with more than a shot glass worth of brains.
Turn the reporting on its head, and what do you have? "New research seems to prove the theory that less brainy people lack the ability to sit the fuck down and focus on a simple task."
> The findings of the study, published in the Journal of Health Psychology, were described as “highly significant” and “robust” in statistical terms.
Their findings may have been statistically significant among the 60 people in their sample, but you're going to have a difficult time convincing me that a sample size that small is "robust", in statistical terms.
This is a perfect manoeuver to peak against net neutrality rules. "Well, porn *is* legal, so if we craft specific online channels, those who want evil, filthy smut can pay a premium for it." This will be the first step in covering that slippery slope in Astroglide.
Why should policing today be any different than policing 100 years ago?
The idea of serving and protecting the community is actually a VERY recent dimension of policing. It's generally applied to serving and protecting the state, or at least the local aristocracy. Your interests don't matter; it's not your name at the bottom of their paycheque.
Spot on.
People forget that the world is a dangerous place, and as much as the government wants to snatch your liberties all for keeping you safe, *they can't*. Bad guys will find a way. They always have, always will. They're more resourceful because they have to be. Terrorists only have to get lucky once; law enforcement has to get lucky *every time* if they're going to live up to their promise of perfect security.
I suggest people accept the dangers of the world. So someone you don't know wants you dead because #Murica. Fine. Take your chances and realize you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning while winning the lottery and being eaten by a shark than you do of getting killed by a terrorist. The chances of being killed by a cop in your own neighbourhood is far higher.
Project MinE started a year before the Ice Bucket Challenge and the money provided to the project that was the direct result of the challenge is a fraction of what it's raised outside of the project.
To suggest the Ice Bucket Challenge funding was directly responsible for the results completely ignores how the funding of these kind of scientific endeavours really works.
"The terms of service required them to give up their first born, and if they don't yet have one, they get until 2050 to do so."
No one sees how this "joke" could come back and bite the company in the ass?
I'm waiting for someone to take them up on the terms and conditions, dropping off their first-born at the company's doorstep. I'd figure the parents are absolved of all responsibility for the child, having signed that responsibility away through the acceptance of the TOS. Let's get 1,000 other users onboard and drop their first-born off at the company. I bet you can do this up until the kid is 18.
Sounds, to me, like an easy way to get rid of moody teenagers...
I wonder if it would be possible to set up a series of these honeypots in order to detect potentially-malicious activity and craft a database of nodes "promoting" malicious activity. Using that data, shape Tor traffic to avoid malicious nodes in the network. Adopting the traffic-shaping would be voluntary, ascentral control over routing is dangerous, and the body operating the "checkpoints" could act transparently.
Not sure if the Tor protocol allows for it; this is just back-of-the-napkin thinking, but it would create a more robust, likely more secure, network.
"Several rightsholder groups argue that strong copyright protections are essential for the survival of their businesses."
What this means is they don't want to have to deal with someone else innovating and competing in their little corner of the economy. That's not good for business.
I'm not arguing for relinquishing the protections content producers have; "fair use" is narrowly defined for a reason: to ensure proper protections remain in place. What content producers don't want is to give legal protections to those operating within the bounds of fair use. That's just inherently wrong.
I don't get why people think that just because something is X today, that means there's excuse for it to be X tomorrow. There's no reason to expect, and less reason to demand, that.
Maybe you should try stepping out of your comfort zone occasionally. You're missing a huge, vibrant world if you refuse to watch things you consider "repulsive"...
Sounds like a fusion of Pokemon and Ingress.
Anyone know if the Ingress developers are getting royalties on this?
When science gets things wrong, others can step in an find the mistakes, re-test, illuminate, fix the problems, and get the science right.
Science *can* tell us how to live, and can tell us how to live *better*. By measuring the desires of the people, one can formulate a platform to achieve those desires. Then, as above, you use your measurements to allocate resources, determine the taxation needed to implement policy, etc, etc, allowing policy to be refined and optimized.
I think the problem is that rampant anti-intellectualism has taken hold in many places. People don't like admitting they don't know what they're talking about, especially by someone who *does* know what they're talking about. It requires inner reflection that reveals to one's own ego the degree of personal ignorance regarding subject X. No one's ego can deal with that, and the ego will do everything it can to protect and insulate itself.
It's important for the average consumer to realize that not all processing tasks are easily parallizable, and some downright aren't. In those cases, additional cores aren't going to give you much in the way speed increases. Of course, your average consumer *doesn't* realize that, and when they go to their favourite big-box store for a new computer, the sales associate isn't going to sit down and discuss the reality of the situation either.
The greatest shortcoming for Star Trek, I think, was that there was no explanation for how we got from the "pre-Trek" ear to embracing exploration and science for the sake of exploration and science. Sure, poverty in the Federation is gone, generally speaking, but the day-to-day issues aren't explained. What if I want to move to a new city? How does one just "get" an apartment in a no-money society?
To be fair, this isn't exactly how it works for non-Starfleet staff; we see the introduction of currency between species (latinum) and it's used amongst Federation civilians on more than one occasion. Cash-based trade still occurs, but the economics of it aren't factored into the broader Star Trek universe. As such a thing will have a direct impact on interpersonal dynamics, Star Trek really pushes this element down to a hidden level so the audience doesn't question the larger plot devices.
Assuming the possibility of even the most rudimentary AI sentience, these principles won't do much.
For example, if an AI, through its various sensors, can recognize itself in the context of its environment, then it can likely distinguish the resources it requires to remain functional. At that point, it's not a far stretch to suggest a value system developing based around those functional requirements. If that value system competes with that of humans, then you end up with a situation where the principle that AI *must* assist humanity goes out the window in order for the AI to protect itself.
I would suggest that *humans* learn to adapt to a future of complex AI. It's important for us to realize that we may have to share the same socio-political space with an entity (or entities) of comparable intelligence, but vastly different, competing needs. Sadly, humans aren't even good at doing this with *other humans*, if history is any indication.
"Do you want a computer to help decide a convict's fate?" asks Engadget...
Why not, *if* the algorithm is reasonably crafted? I think the controversy is that the algorithm in question took the probability of repeat offending into consideration. However, if certain metrics can be calculated, particularly with respect to culpability, victim impact, remorse, etc, then why shouldn't an algorithm be used to determine the optimum sentence?
While I'll be the first to state that I don't know what the standard would look like for such variables, they are all things that can be measured, modeled, analyzed and applied. By integrating an algorithm for optimal sentencing I think we could get rid of a ton of waste in the penal system incarcerating people who may not necessarily need to be incarcerated any longer (and do away with ridiculous minimum-sentencing garbage).
...and now ISIS operatives will curtail their social media activity in response to this.
Great way to push ISIS communications underground where it'll be more difficult for alphabet soup agencies to analyze...