Yours [WCMI92's] comment is one of only two that mentions the most insightful word on this topic: "monopoly". Nothing substantive to merit a mod point, even if I ever saw one to give. Mostly replying here from curiosity. Your sig suggests insight, but the Subject: suggests sucker. Perhaps it's a reversed satirical Subject:?
However, I'll throw out a rehash of my suggested solution approach: Change the tax system to make it pro-freedom, anti-greedom. What we have now is a system where the best bribers pay off the cheapest politicians to rig the game in favor of the biggest corporate cancers. What we need is a system that encourages competition and choice and freedom.
My proposal (but I'd be glad to hear if you have a better one) would be a progressive tax on corporate profits based not on size, but on market share. Any company that eliminates the other choices would get taxed accordingly, with part of the bonus taxes going (1) to regulating the monopoly and (2) for research into ways to break the monopoly.
Having read a bunch of computer history books in the past and Fire in the Valley (Collector's Edition) just a few days ago, I find that "Informative" mod really hard to understand.
If I was forced to summarize it in a few words, I'd say the Boca Raton project was a rather wild stab in the dark and IBM went with commodity components mostly to speed things up. The relatively open architecture was basically a lucky guess. In a way I'd say the IBMers are similar to Microsoft. They couldn't get the hang of small machines, just as Microsoft never got the hang of small OSes.
I was actually working in Austin when a lot of the mass production of PC components was being done there. Not sure if this will date it precisely, but I think we were shipping motherboards with four banks of memory. Only one bank was soldered in, and the other three banks were empty sockets because memory was so expensive at the time. Pretty sure it was 8 or 9 memory chips per 64K. Also worked on CGI graphics cards, if I remember correctly. Maybe 16 colors in the fancy mode, but I think it was 4 colors in the high-rez mode.
Then again, Commodore didn't get much mention in the book. I do remember when the Amiga came out and the specs sure sounded amazing.
. I have a good sense of direction (which gets practiced by not relying on GPS).
I actually think my sense of direction has been honed and even improved by training against my smartphone. I've become better at retaining orientation in stairwell reversals and in "feeling" what maps actually mean on the ground without relying on distinctive landmarks as much as I used to.
These days I've become increasingly able to study the map in advance and negotiate complicated routes without needing the smartphone--but it's also reassuring to have it available if I need it.
I'd give you a funny mod for that one (if I ever got a mod point).
So far there haven't been many suggestions that seem related to the actual "contest", but maybe that's because everyone else is as confused as I am by the entire idea. I think the underlying motivation is that it's some sort of social commentary on people being too dependent on their smartphones, but I, too, am not getting the joke.
(As the "propagator" of the so-called story I feel obliged to look over all the comments... However now I'm wrestling with the moral question as to whether that includes looking at the AC comments? Ah, wait. I have an excuse to (as usual) ignore them! I'm behind schedule on some other work I need to finish by Tuesday...)
Why is Slashdot overrun with illiterate trolls these years? One of my theories is that international hackers think trolling on Slashdot is a cheap way to boost their English skills.
Okay, so the old scammers are trying some new wrinkles to get money, but does it cross the threshold to be actual news? I don't think so, unless maybe you're a glutton for sad stories.
If the google wanted to decriminalize YouTube, they've had years of brilliance to come up with solutions. Obviously the google don't care. They must be making money from supporting the criminals or they would stop supporting the criminals. The only "law" at today's google is "All your attention are belong to us!"
(I actually reached that conclusion some years ago after a dinner and drinks with a coworker who'd switched to the google. Not long after that he blackholed me. What's that newfangled term for it? Pretending someone doesn't exist anymore?)
Really, that's how people think. "It's a little cheaper [or more convenient or whatever] to live here today, so that's where I'll live." Sure, there's going to be an earthquake [or a flood or a fire or whatever] at some point in the future, but each individual making the decision only knows for sure about the current situation, and the future gets dealt with [or not] when it arrives. It's all a matter of time, eh?
At first (in time) I thought the first-post joke about a wall and the riposte about #PresidentTweety were just trollish games, but now I'm seeing things differently. It must be that some of the people supporting the #OrangeOxyMoron are [not] thinking in the same way.
The topic is hot here on Mars. (I still like that euphemistic destination one of my friends selected when I left Austin so many years ago...) My wife actually went up to help some of the victims of the triple disaster in Fukushima, where they did have walls that were supposed to help with the tsunami part of the mess. Didn't work so well. I think the most amazing result is that TEPCo still exists. Talk about a toxic brand.
The local cycle time for major earthquakes right here has been around 70 years. On that basis we're about 40 years overdue. You have a nice day, too.
By the way, I actually think Murphy's Law is about to get invoked. We won't get the big quake here until the rest of the world is completely incapacitated and unable to help out. The Donald is wrecking as fast as he can, so it may be soon.
There's a fundamental trade-off as you get big. You can try to use the size to support more niches and allow for the fact that different people think differently. In the example before us, different people actually want to communicate with other people in various ways.
Or you can try to use the size to maximize profits by finding the one solution that is most profitable and trying to force everyone into the same mental straitjacket. That clearly seems to be the way the google is going these days, but they're merely following the old trail of the other corporate cancers. (I still think the most plausible solution approach lies in pro-freedom anti-greedom rules of the road (including tax policies).)
By the way, it isn't limited to business. It also applies to universities, and I think I have experience with schools at both ends of the spectrum (as well as a few in the middle). In the academic context it maps to whether they are teaching big thoughts or obedience.
I prefer the form "Even paranoids have real enemies."
However I think this best summarizes my excessively mixed attitude towards Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/group... (The owner of the group should change the group number (default) to something like "FacebookHatersUsingFacebook".)
Why am I not surprised to see such wild goose threads as this? Rather sad not to see any funny comments, but no mention of Nissan or stock prices and only trivial mentions of Iran.
Starting with the Iran aspect since it did get touched: Violation of sanctions is a matter of opinion, where the rest of the world is on the other side from TrumpLand. Not sure what pressure they managed to find to persuade Canada to make the arrest, but it's not a wise move. The stock market is going to be badly spooked no matter what Xi decides to do about it.
However I think the general anarchic attitude towards international law is beginning to bear poisonous fruit. A few weeks ago the Japanese government arrested Ghosn of Nissan for crimes that most of the French regard as trumped up. Going to be interesting trying to recruit executives for international assignments going forward.
Anyway, my own experiences with Huawei products have been surprisingly positive. Is that a disclaimer or a hedge?
If I ever got a mod point, then I'd give you [KixWooder] an insightful mod for that comment rather than a mere interesting. Hypothetical since I never get mod points. Or maybe not even relevant, since I do want to comment and I think that would cancel my hypothetical mod point...
The most significant aspect is that we reached saturation much faster this time compared to computers, (but also relative to any other technology I can think of). The capabilities of the smartphones are beyond what most people can actually use, and even though the capabilities are increasing (and the prices are decreasing), there's no reason to buy a new one. The available new customers are just late adopters yielding ever lower profit margins (as the prices continue to fall).
Converting it to anecdote form (as a data point), what I am doing with my latest smartphone is only slightly better than what I was doing three smartphones ago. Actually, there was one major feature of my old PDA that I still haven't ported to the smartphone era, but mostly I've been looking for new things I actually want to do and not finding much. (Voice dictation is the main one, but it would run on the old phones, too.) The main reason I got a new smartphone this year was because it was free, but if prices keep falling, they may have to pay me to go through the hassle up the next "upgrade".
(Perhaps my perception of the lack of new and desirable features is just because I've mostly stopped playing time-wasting games? Most of the "new" games are just flashier versions of ancient classics. Interesting coincidence that I'm almost finished reading Fire in the Valley right now, and it mentions many of the old games (and brings back the memories). I don't play them now, but I'm confident I would still enjoy them. I just feel I have better uses for my time and absolutely no need for more and newer ways to waste time. (Well, except for that literacy development game no one has developed yet...))
Pay me to upgrade my smartphone? Well that's also how I'm feeling about the latest pains of Windows 10. Come to think of it, I didn't pay any money for those upgrades to Windows 10 and I have no desire to ever again pay Microsoft for anything... (Just my allergy to corporate cancers typing?)
I've known what "assume" makes of you and me for decades, but you have me wondering about the possible relationship between "anecdote" and "data".
Hmm... That suggests an obvious search. Possibly "The plural of anecdote is data" is your reference? Not sure how that relates to your reply because your list is short of anecdotal.
Anyway, the actual reason I'm here is because it was an active discussion so I hoped to find some funny comments. No such luck. You weren't even moderated funny, but just used the word.
Hmm... So applying my General Theory of Relatively Funny Stuff, it's beginning to seem like Slashdot has reached peak "nothing to learn here". My glorious theory of humor is that we basically laugh to learn, but the lack of laughter seems unlikely to indicate any omniscience of Slashdot.
At first I thought I had missed some good news, or that it was a shrine to some relative. Then I realized you meant within the context of a novel, which turned out to have been published in 2004. The blurb says the novel is actually set in 2023.
I had never paid much attention to Trump before he metastasized into #PresidentTweety, but now I'm frequently surprised by how many pre-campaign books mention him (often as some sort of benchmark or sometimes indirectly, as in characters meeting in one of his buildings). He really had invaded the public consciousness even before he set out to destroy it.
I'm just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Also trying to find an actually humorous joke somewhere in there.
However, as regards the Russians, I doubt they would have to hack the GOP. I really think they have so many of them by the balls (starting at the head of the fish) that no hacking would be required. They would just ring someone up and ask for the passwords.
"Good day, comrade. So funny that you thought this was an unlisted phone number." Of course with a heavy Russian accent.
Or is it a case of "No harm, no foul"? We're so deep in the dishonesty that no one knows what to believe now, and evidence be damned, full speed ahead. Or in reverse, or maybe we should bear to starboard or larboard. "Wait, Captain, we can't dive now, the hatch is still open!" Followed by exhortations to Scotty to beam up the landing party and go to Warp 7!
(Yeah, now I'm wondering if all the confusion all started with Star Trek... Just reading Fire in the Valley (an autographed copy of the collector's edition), and I had no idea that the Altair name came from "Amok Time".)
Anyway, I can't decide what my favorite theory is as regards this story. A few crazy candidates:
1. Nothing happened, but the claim is to make the other side look bad.
2. The Dems did it, and used the stolen goods diabolically and effectively. (Hey, there's a first time for everything!)
3. Putin did it as a favor to #PresidentTweety to make the other side look bad.
4. A Libertarian did it, but Wikileaks refused to touch the hot ice.
5. The Saudis (MBS) hired North Korea (KJU) to do it to keep the GOP in line.
6. The Dems did it, but couldn't find anything interesting in the pile.
7. Mueller did it, but he ain't saying nuttin'.
8. Xi told He to do it, and Who's on first!
Why am I not surprised that the so-called HTML-mode of Slashdot does not actually support the proper numbering of the OL tag? So I have to add the numbers manually, eh?
None of the short comments on this thread seem to be showing much understanding of the problem. This last comment (your [Luckyo's] second) might be related to some aspect of the real problem. I was actually looking for some more data for this topic for my students today. In addition to a section early in Homo Deus and this TED video: https://www.ted.com/talks/jenn..., though both of them seem to be too dismissive of the threats.
I actually think the most likely doomsday scenario is a bioweapon. Genetic manipulation makes it more more likely that some fools will do it inadvertently in the belief they have targeted the weapon accurately enough to only kill their genetically marked enemies.
On one point of apparent confusion in my position (but shallow thinkers are just so eager to construct straw men (because they can sometimes defeat them)) I would actually say that we should not apply passive eugenics against random mutations. We should start from the basis of allowing parents to select in favor of their best genes, but when mutations occur, we should not eliminate them. However, we should essentially have a form of social insurance to cover the costs, because most of the mutations are going to be negative. Time's up, but ADSAuPR, atAJG.
I've been rather surprised by the shallowness of all of the discussions I've seen on this topic, even in association with relatively deep articles like this one from Ars Technica. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
My comment on that article:
How is it possible that the word "eugenics" does not appear in this story or in any of the comments? Or maybe I'm just more mindboggled than usual? Or people are just too afraid to use the word, even though it is obviously the key issue here? Too much study of philosophy?
If you approach it from the perspective of eugenics, then I think the key distinction is between active and passive eugenics. Starting with the passive side, I think it is relatively benign to say that people should be allowed to have healthier children, including their genetic health. We are beginning to know a few things about what that actually means. For example, I think it makes sense and is even ethically appropriate to allow parents to consider whether or not they want to have children with fatal TSD, debilitating sickle cell anemia, or even hemophilia.
People don't have to undertake those considerations, though the "natural" equilibrium solution is for parents to have four children on average so that two of them can die. Nature has a very coldblooded perspective. If the genes are mixed at random, half of the combinations are below average and half are above. Cruel Mother Nature "fixes" that problem by killing off the unlucky half before it can reproduce. Too bad that most parents would prefer not to see half of their children die, eh?
What we have in this research is NOT passive eugenics, but active eugenics. Even worse, it is in the form of gambling of the most dangerous sort. We don't know the real price of the lottery ticket and we don't even know how close the result is to the ostensible prize. If you were figuring the probabilities, then the positive side has a low probability and a low value, while the negative side has much larger probabilities and many large costs.
But there are human lives at stake here. Regardless of what degree of consent the parents may have been able to give, the resulting children had absolutely NO say in the matter, but they now have to live with the consequences. If there is any defense for this research, I haven't detected it yet. I could say much more against positive eugenics, but I've already spent more time than I can spare on this comment...
Even less time for Slashdot these days. That's why I didn't bother to tailor it for this discussion. The issues are basically the same.
Rather saddens me, actually. I'm trying to remember the last time the google had a good idea without 10 bad ideas piled on top. Email is an especially sore wound, since there' so much room for improvement there.
I've given up wondering how the google profits from supporting scammers and spammers. Makes as much sense (= zero) as wondering why they don't fix the moderation on Slashdot.
The specific email feature I actually want the most right now is an email system that will bounce any confidential-mode email that anyone tries to send me.
Excuse me, but I have to get back to grading my student's homework in email. I know that this new quick-response is supposed to be time-saving rather than dehumanizing, but it certainly is useless to me and I think I will pledge NEVER to use it. Just like the confidential-mode BS.
Basically expressing concurrence (or some form of solidarity?) with this comment and some others you've made, but I don't (ever) have any mod points to give you. [I've stopped wondering why no mod points. Just one more aspect of the broken and incurable state of Slashdot in general and the moderation in particular.]
However it takes years for new causes to affect mortality statistics and therefore I think it is too soon to blame #PresidentTweety, even though I agree he is a YUGE source of unnecessary stress. I'm certain that I would be quite unhappy if I were trapped in a reality TV show, but this surreality show, even without the TV, is really starting to get to me.
LEGAL NOTICE: From now on, I will be posting the following quote whenever there is a discussion here on Slashdot about climate change or renewable energy:
"“They’re making a mistake because I have a gut and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.”
You deserve the funny mod and the trolls with their troll mods should lose their future mod points. However, my gut tells me Slashdot is incapable of fixing any of its many problems, and bad moderation is merely one of the more annoying problems that will never get fixed. ADSAuPR, atAJG.
You're feeding a moronic troll. By NO stretch of the imagination was Hillary ever the demon she was cracked up to be. But the decades of slander, vilification, and demonization finally worked well enough for Putin's puppet to seize the White House.
Only one real reason they hated her so much. Certainly not her policies. It was because she was in the wrong political party. (Ditto Bill, actually.)
At least in Obama's case they could add some good old-fashioned racism into the mix of motivations. That's sort of conservative, for the very worst senses of the term.
I actually think the underlying idea is good, but the motivation is all wrong here. The underlying idea is basically like a credit report on an individual or the investment-grade ratings issued by such companies as Moody's. I think the main problem is not with the ratings, but with the secrecy. In particular the public parts of the information should be available to the public without paying for the harvesting and various attempts to lock it down under copyright and other schemes.
Let me bring it home to Slashdot. I would like to know what sort of person you [piojo in this case] are so I can decide how much attention to pay to your comment. You might feel likewise before considering my reply. I actually think the generalized solution approach would be something I describe as MEPR (Multidimensional Earned Public Reputation) that would let me get a quick view of what sort of person you are, either from a default viewpoint or adjusted for my own priorities and concerns. (For example, the default might rate politeness relatively heavily, while I'm kind of thick-skinned as long as there's an interesting idea there.) Can you imagine fixing karma so it actually means something?
Unfortunately I think the objective of the dictators of China is just to create an easy way to keep track of troublemakers. It's actually quite like the Libertarians who wrote the book called Nudge, who want to play games to manipulate people with as little effort as possible. Or maybe I should appeal to Sun Tzu? Just read another book based on his classic.
Slashdot Mirror
Yours [WCMI92's] comment is one of only two that mentions the most insightful word on this topic: "monopoly". Nothing substantive to merit a mod point, even if I ever saw one to give. Mostly replying here from curiosity. Your sig suggests insight, but the Subject: suggests sucker. Perhaps it's a reversed satirical Subject:?
However, I'll throw out a rehash of my suggested solution approach: Change the tax system to make it pro-freedom, anti-greedom. What we have now is a system where the best bribers pay off the cheapest politicians to rig the game in favor of the biggest corporate cancers. What we need is a system that encourages competition and choice and freedom.
My proposal (but I'd be glad to hear if you have a better one) would be a progressive tax on corporate profits based not on size, but on market share. Any company that eliminates the other choices would get taxed accordingly, with part of the bonus taxes going (1) to regulating the monopoly and (2) for research into ways to break the monopoly.
Enough time spent for now, but ADSAuPR, atAJG.
Having read a bunch of computer history books in the past and Fire in the Valley (Collector's Edition) just a few days ago, I find that "Informative" mod really hard to understand.
If I was forced to summarize it in a few words, I'd say the Boca Raton project was a rather wild stab in the dark and IBM went with commodity components mostly to speed things up. The relatively open architecture was basically a lucky guess. In a way I'd say the IBMers are similar to Microsoft. They couldn't get the hang of small machines, just as Microsoft never got the hang of small OSes.
I was actually working in Austin when a lot of the mass production of PC components was being done there. Not sure if this will date it precisely, but I think we were shipping motherboards with four banks of memory. Only one bank was soldered in, and the other three banks were empty sockets because memory was so expensive at the time. Pretty sure it was 8 or 9 memory chips per 64K. Also worked on CGI graphics cards, if I remember correctly. Maybe 16 colors in the fancy mode, but I think it was 4 colors in the high-rez mode.
Then again, Commodore didn't get much mention in the book. I do remember when the Amiga came out and the specs sure sounded amazing.
.
I have a good sense of direction (which gets practiced by not relying on GPS).
I actually think my sense of direction has been honed and even improved by training against my smartphone. I've become better at retaining orientation in stairwell reversals and in "feeling" what maps actually mean on the ground without relying on distinctive landmarks as much as I used to.
These days I've become increasingly able to study the map in advance and negotiate complicated routes without needing the smartphone--but it's also reassuring to have it available if I need it.
IP = Internet Protocol not Internet Phone.
But the handle is ringing a bell.
I'd give you a funny mod for that one (if I ever got a mod point).
So far there haven't been many suggestions that seem related to the actual "contest", but maybe that's because everyone else is as confused as I am by the entire idea. I think the underlying motivation is that it's some sort of social commentary on people being too dependent on their smartphones, but I, too, am not getting the joke.
(As the "propagator" of the so-called story I feel obliged to look over all the comments... However now I'm wrestling with the moral question as to whether that includes looking at the AC comments? Ah, wait. I have an excuse to (as usual) ignore them! I'm behind schedule on some other work I need to finish by Tuesday...)
Why is Slashdot overrun with illiterate trolls these years? One of my theories is that international hackers think trolling on Slashdot is a cheap way to boost their English skills.
Okay, so the old scammers are trying some new wrinkles to get money, but does it cross the threshold to be actual news? I don't think so, unless maybe you're a glutton for sad stories.
If the google wanted to decriminalize YouTube, they've had years of brilliance to come up with solutions. Obviously the google don't care. They must be making money from supporting the criminals or they would stop supporting the criminals. The only "law" at today's google is "All your attention are belong to us!"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
(I actually reached that conclusion some years ago after a dinner and drinks with a coworker who'd switched to the google. Not long after that he blackholed me. What's that newfangled term for it? Pretending someone doesn't exist anymore?)
Really, that's how people think. "It's a little cheaper [or more convenient or whatever] to live here today, so that's where I'll live." Sure, there's going to be an earthquake [or a flood or a fire or whatever] at some point in the future, but each individual making the decision only knows for sure about the current situation, and the future gets dealt with [or not] when it arrives. It's all a matter of time, eh?
At first (in time) I thought the first-post joke about a wall and the riposte about #PresidentTweety were just trollish games, but now I'm seeing things differently. It must be that some of the people supporting the #OrangeOxyMoron are [not] thinking in the same way.
The topic is hot here on Mars. (I still like that euphemistic destination one of my friends selected when I left Austin so many years ago...) My wife actually went up to help some of the victims of the triple disaster in Fukushima, where they did have walls that were supposed to help with the tsunami part of the mess. Didn't work so well. I think the most amazing result is that TEPCo still exists. Talk about a toxic brand.
The local cycle time for major earthquakes right here has been around 70 years. On that basis we're about 40 years overdue. You have a nice day, too.
By the way, I actually think Murphy's Law is about to get invoked. We won't get the big quake here until the rest of the world is completely incapacitated and unable to help out. The Donald is wrecking as fast as he can, so it may be soon.
There's a fundamental trade-off as you get big. You can try to use the size to support more niches and allow for the fact that different people think differently. In the example before us, different people actually want to communicate with other people in various ways.
Or you can try to use the size to maximize profits by finding the one solution that is most profitable and trying to force everyone into the same mental straitjacket. That clearly seems to be the way the google is going these days, but they're merely following the old trail of the other corporate cancers. (I still think the most plausible solution approach lies in pro-freedom anti-greedom rules of the road (including tax policies).)
By the way, it isn't limited to business. It also applies to universities, and I think I have experience with schools at both ends of the spectrum (as well as a few in the middle). In the academic context it maps to whether they are teaching big thoughts or obedience.
I prefer the form "Even paranoids have real enemies."
However I think this best summarizes my excessively mixed attitude towards Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/group... (The owner of the group should change the group number (default) to something like "FacebookHatersUsingFacebook".)
Why am I not surprised to see such wild goose threads as this? Rather sad not to see any funny comments, but no mention of Nissan or stock prices and only trivial mentions of Iran.
Starting with the Iran aspect since it did get touched: Violation of sanctions is a matter of opinion, where the rest of the world is on the other side from TrumpLand. Not sure what pressure they managed to find to persuade Canada to make the arrest, but it's not a wise move. The stock market is going to be badly spooked no matter what Xi decides to do about it.
However I think the general anarchic attitude towards international law is beginning to bear poisonous fruit. A few weeks ago the Japanese government arrested Ghosn of Nissan for crimes that most of the French regard as trumped up. Going to be interesting trying to recruit executives for international assignments going forward.
Anyway, my own experiences with Huawei products have been surprisingly positive. Is that a disclaimer or a hedge?
If I ever got a mod point, then I'd give you [KixWooder] an insightful mod for that comment rather than a mere interesting. Hypothetical since I never get mod points. Or maybe not even relevant, since I do want to comment and I think that would cancel my hypothetical mod point...
The most significant aspect is that we reached saturation much faster this time compared to computers, (but also relative to any other technology I can think of). The capabilities of the smartphones are beyond what most people can actually use, and even though the capabilities are increasing (and the prices are decreasing), there's no reason to buy a new one. The available new customers are just late adopters yielding ever lower profit margins (as the prices continue to fall).
Converting it to anecdote form (as a data point), what I am doing with my latest smartphone is only slightly better than what I was doing three smartphones ago. Actually, there was one major feature of my old PDA that I still haven't ported to the smartphone era, but mostly I've been looking for new things I actually want to do and not finding much. (Voice dictation is the main one, but it would run on the old phones, too.) The main reason I got a new smartphone this year was because it was free, but if prices keep falling, they may have to pay me to go through the hassle up the next "upgrade".
(Perhaps my perception of the lack of new and desirable features is just because I've mostly stopped playing time-wasting games? Most of the "new" games are just flashier versions of ancient classics. Interesting coincidence that I'm almost finished reading Fire in the Valley right now, and it mentions many of the old games (and brings back the memories). I don't play them now, but I'm confident I would still enjoy them. I just feel I have better uses for my time and absolutely no need for more and newer ways to waste time. (Well, except for that literacy development game no one has developed yet...))
Pay me to upgrade my smartphone? Well that's also how I'm feeling about the latest pains of Windows 10. Come to think of it, I didn't pay any money for those upgrades to Windows 10 and I have no desire to ever again pay Microsoft for anything... (Just my allergy to corporate cancers typing?)
I've known what "assume" makes of you and me for decades, but you have me wondering about the possible relationship between "anecdote" and "data".
Hmm... That suggests an obvious search. Possibly "The plural of anecdote is data" is your reference? Not sure how that relates to your reply because your list is short of anecdotal.
Anyway, the actual reason I'm here is because it was an active discussion so I hoped to find some funny comments. No such luck. You weren't even moderated funny, but just used the word.
Hmm... So applying my General Theory of Relatively Funny Stuff, it's beginning to seem like Slashdot has reached peak "nothing to learn here". My glorious theory of humor is that we basically laugh to learn, but the lack of laughter seems unlikely to indicate any omniscience of Slashdot.
At first I thought I had missed some good news, or that it was a shrine to some relative. Then I realized you meant within the context of a novel, which turned out to have been published in 2004. The blurb says the novel is actually set in 2023.
I had never paid much attention to Trump before he metastasized into #PresidentTweety, but now I'm frequently surprised by how many pre-campaign books mention him (often as some sort of benchmark or sometimes indirectly, as in characters meeting in one of his buildings). He really had invaded the public consciousness even before he set out to destroy it.
I'm just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Also trying to find an actually humorous joke somewhere in there.
However, as regards the Russians, I doubt they would have to hack the GOP. I really think they have so many of them by the balls (starting at the head of the fish) that no hacking would be required. They would just ring someone up and ask for the passwords.
"Good day, comrade. So funny that you thought this was an unlisted phone number." Of course with a heavy Russian accent.
Or is it a case of "No harm, no foul"? We're so deep in the dishonesty that no one knows what to believe now, and evidence be damned, full speed ahead. Or in reverse, or maybe we should bear to starboard or larboard. "Wait, Captain, we can't dive now, the hatch is still open!" Followed by exhortations to Scotty to beam up the landing party and go to Warp 7!
(Yeah, now I'm wondering if all the confusion all started with Star Trek... Just reading Fire in the Valley (an autographed copy of the collector's edition), and I had no idea that the Altair name came from "Amok Time".)
Anyway, I can't decide what my favorite theory is as regards this story. A few crazy candidates:
Why am I not surprised that the so-called HTML-mode of Slashdot does not actually support the proper numbering of the OL tag? So I have to add the numbers manually, eh?
No, that is NOT what I wrote. Drop me a line when you learn to read better.
None of the short comments on this thread seem to be showing much understanding of the problem. This last comment (your [Luckyo's] second) might be related to some aspect of the real problem. I was actually looking for some more data for this topic for my students today. In addition to a section early in Homo Deus and this TED video: https://www.ted.com/talks/jenn..., though both of them seem to be too dismissive of the threats.
I actually think the most likely doomsday scenario is a bioweapon. Genetic manipulation makes it more more likely that some fools will do it inadvertently in the belief they have targeted the weapon accurately enough to only kill their genetically marked enemies.
On one point of apparent confusion in my position (but shallow thinkers are just so eager to construct straw men (because they can sometimes defeat them)) I would actually say that we should not apply passive eugenics against random mutations. We should start from the basis of allowing parents to select in favor of their best genes, but when mutations occur, we should not eliminate them. However, we should essentially have a form of social insurance to cover the costs, because most of the mutations are going to be negative. Time's up, but ADSAuPR, atAJG.
I've been rather surprised by the shallowness of all of the discussions I've seen on this topic, even in association with relatively deep articles like this one from Ars Technica. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
My comment on that article:
How is it possible that the word "eugenics" does not appear in this story or in any of the comments? Or maybe I'm just more mindboggled than usual? Or people are just too afraid to use the word, even though it is obviously the key issue here? Too much study of philosophy?
If you approach it from the perspective of eugenics, then I think the key distinction is between active and passive eugenics. Starting with the passive side, I think it is relatively benign to say that people should be allowed to have healthier children, including their genetic health. We are beginning to know a few things about what that actually means. For example, I think it makes sense and is even ethically appropriate to allow parents to consider whether or not they want to have children with fatal TSD, debilitating sickle cell anemia, or even hemophilia.
People don't have to undertake those considerations, though the "natural" equilibrium solution is for parents to have four children on average so that two of them can die. Nature has a very coldblooded perspective. If the genes are mixed at random, half of the combinations are below average and half are above. Cruel Mother Nature "fixes" that problem by killing off the unlucky half before it can reproduce. Too bad that most parents would prefer not to see half of their children die, eh?
What we have in this research is NOT passive eugenics, but active eugenics. Even worse, it is in the form of gambling of the most dangerous sort. We don't know the real price of the lottery ticket and we don't even know how close the result is to the ostensible prize. If you were figuring the probabilities, then the positive side has a low probability and a low value, while the negative side has much larger probabilities and many large costs.
But there are human lives at stake here. Regardless of what degree of consent the parents may have been able to give, the resulting children had absolutely NO say in the matter, but they now have to live with the consequences. If there is any defense for this research, I haven't detected it yet. I could say much more against positive eugenics, but I've already spent more time than I can spare on this comment...
Even less time for Slashdot these days. That's why I didn't bother to tailor it for this discussion. The issues are basically the same.
Rather saddens me, actually. I'm trying to remember the last time the google had a good idea without 10 bad ideas piled on top. Email is an especially sore wound, since there' so much room for improvement there.
I've given up wondering how the google profits from supporting scammers and spammers. Makes as much sense (= zero) as wondering why they don't fix the moderation on Slashdot.
The specific email feature I actually want the most right now is an email system that will bounce any confidential-mode email that anyone tries to send me.
Excuse me, but I have to get back to grading my student's homework in email. I know that this new quick-response is supposed to be time-saving rather than dehumanizing, but it certainly is useless to me and I think I will pledge NEVER to use it. Just like the confidential-mode BS.
Basically expressing concurrence (or some form of solidarity?) with this comment and some others you've made, but I don't (ever) have any mod points to give you. [I've stopped wondering why no mod points. Just one more aspect of the broken and incurable state of Slashdot in general and the moderation in particular.]
However it takes years for new causes to affect mortality statistics and therefore I think it is too soon to blame #PresidentTweety, even though I agree he is a YUGE source of unnecessary stress. I'm certain that I would be quite unhappy if I were trapped in a reality TV show, but this surreality show, even without the TV, is really starting to get to me.
LEGAL NOTICE: From now on, I will be posting the following quote whenever there is a discussion here on Slashdot about climate change or renewable energy:
You deserve the funny mod and the trolls with their troll mods should lose their future mod points. However, my gut tells me Slashdot is incapable of fixing any of its many problems, and bad moderation is merely one of the more annoying problems that will never get fixed. ADSAuPR, atAJG.
You're feeding a moronic troll. By NO stretch of the imagination was Hillary ever the demon she was cracked up to be. But the decades of slander, vilification, and demonization finally worked well enough for Putin's puppet to seize the White House.
Only one real reason they hated her so much. Certainly not her policies. It was because she was in the wrong political party. (Ditto Bill, actually.)
At least in Obama's case they could add some good old-fashioned racism into the mix of motivations. That's sort of conservative, for the very worst senses of the term.
I'd be especially good at the part about trashing bad products. Only problem is I'd probably forget and trash my sponsor's products, too.
Oh, wait. First I'd have to get to the influencer point where more than a few trolls are interested in my babblings.
I actually think the underlying idea is good, but the motivation is all wrong here. The underlying idea is basically like a credit report on an individual or the investment-grade ratings issued by such companies as Moody's. I think the main problem is not with the ratings, but with the secrecy. In particular the public parts of the information should be available to the public without paying for the harvesting and various attempts to lock it down under copyright and other schemes.
Let me bring it home to Slashdot. I would like to know what sort of person you [piojo in this case] are so I can decide how much attention to pay to your comment. You might feel likewise before considering my reply. I actually think the generalized solution approach would be something I describe as MEPR (Multidimensional Earned Public Reputation) that would let me get a quick view of what sort of person you are, either from a default viewpoint or adjusted for my own priorities and concerns. (For example, the default might rate politeness relatively heavily, while I'm kind of thick-skinned as long as there's an interesting idea there.) Can you imagine fixing karma so it actually means something?
Unfortunately I think the objective of the dictators of China is just to create an easy way to keep track of troublemakers. It's actually quite like the Libertarians who wrote the book called Nudge , who want to play games to manipulate people with as little effort as possible. Or maybe I should appeal to Sun Tzu? Just read another book based on his classic.