Interesting post, and if I ever saw a mod point, I might give it to you, even though you only posed the questions.
Anyway, it's obvious that technology is influencing elections in many ways, but mostly for the worse. Just picking a few examples off the top of my head:
(1) Scientific polling that makes voting feel meaningless (2) Precise gerrymandering that distorts the House of so-called Representatives (3) Trump's self-immolation via Twitter
Still no funny comments and the ones modded insightful weren't, and the discussion is almost expired...
Of course the amazing thing is that Trump probably thinks the tweeting is helping his campaign. He doesn't even want to stop, though Hillary would be helping him greatly if this gimmick discouraged him from tweeting. Like Sun Tzu says, you shouldn't interfere when your enemy is punching himself in the face. (Actually, I'm still entertaining the hypothesis that Twitter actually brainwashed Trump with Alt-Right links.)
I still think it's kind of unfair for Hillary to exploit his weaknesses, but then again, I think Trump is asking for it. Near as I can tell, no one forced him into this ritual humiliation. Kind of a shame he didn't have any good friends who could persuade him not to, and if he thought Bill Clinton was being a good friend when he encouraged him to run against Bill's very own wife... Well, there goes any claim to high intelligence, as if the Donald's campaign hadn't been proof enough.
If there were some similar comments already, I would have appended mine. Nothing showed up yet, and the participation in Slashdot these days is so low that I'm not expecting much before the article dies. The moderation is not helping (as usual), but I have a new question about some discouraging "award" I recently received. Couldn't find out anything about it, so I guess I should care even less, eh?
Recommend everyone who thinks this is a good idea should read Cyber War. In short summary, America probably has good offensive capabilities, but pretty much NO defenses and HIGH vulnerability. The Chinese are actually best positioned to fight and win any cyber war, and I wouldn't even be surprised if they are framing the Russians right now...
However, my main disappointment just now is with the state of Slashdot. No prior mention of "defense"? Where has all the insight gone?
There must be an army of sock puppets giving "insightful" mod points to AC garbage that should be invisible to me.
Insight would be to note that Putin is taking advantage of the current electoral dysfunction of the USA to perpetrate large-scale war crimes in Syria. There was a time when politics stopped at the water's edge, but not now and Putin knows it.
In the debate itself insight would have been to note that Iran's increased power in the region is primarily due to Dubya's insane war against Iraq. Most of the current proxy wars are desperate attempts to contain Iran. The punchline is that they're still being funding with American money, added on top of the financial losses in Iraq itself. Maybe Afghanistan costs should be counted, too, but at least Bin Ladin was there at one time, so it's much harder to figure out who's to blame for that mess...
My own theory about posts like this is that the Russian hackers have taken over some dormant Slashdot accounts with low user numbers and have some of their best BS artists working them.
No equivalency between Hillary and Trump. She is not a witch, but she might burn you.
Only branch of the discussion that seems to be close to the technical target, which is presumably why this aspect of the debate received "priority" treatment on Slashdot over the now passe sexual assault and the astounding promise to put his political opponent in prison if he wins. (How many times can he break the bottom of the barrel?)
The question of the accuracy of WikiLeaks is quite crucial. Anyone can release anything via WikiLeaks, and the potential for disinformation is boundless. Actually, we already know that some of the recent leaks have been tampered with because there are inconsistencies between versions that are supposed to be the same leaked information. Not really a technical issue, but it appears that in distancing themselves from the hacking, some of Putin's people screwed up rather badly.
Really hard for me to stay focused on such trivia. On the one hand, we have a Banana Republican leading a mob of rabid clowns. On the other hand, we have a nasty old lawyer. I don't like lawyers much, but she isn't a witch, there's no reason to burn her, and if she's a skilled lawyer then she'll probably do a good job in handling her clients' affairs, even if her clients are all of the American voters.
I think Trump has redefined the GOP brand. Now it stands for "Grab Our Pussies" and they'll never get the fishy smell out of it. (Apologies to the ocean joke with gawd.)
I think I have to say that I don't know enough about the company versus the protocol. Perhaps it is a mistake to link it to the "brand" or label BitTorrent, since I'm really talking about P2P as a philosophy that makes a lot of sense from a technical perspective. I think P2P networking should replace a lot of the giant infrastructure of the ISPs, but the problem is not technical, but economic and political.
Big infrastructure creates the economic potential for big profits and the political potential for control of the flow of information. BAD.
Limitation on "BAD". In the case of a natural monopoly, then we do need careful regulation and probably special taxation to fund research into ways to break the monopoly.
If Slashdot had a better economic model, one of the features that I would be most likely to support would be a recent-post editing feature for stupid typos, like the one in the original Subject: of this thread.
Gotta stop flogging that dead horse, but my next two targets would be (1) features to reduce the visibility of trolls and (2) improvements in the moderation. Actually, the recent-post editing doesn't matter that much to me, much as I hate the typos. It would probably be 3rd or lower on my list.
It might seem rational to you and me that we work (and play) together nicely, and that our computers could help us. Speaking in a broader sense, if there is some video or news item that a LOT of us want to see, then my computer could help nearby computers get that information, and they could help their neighbors, too.
Too bad no one makes a profit on being neighborly.
The way to maximum profits is CONTROL. You have to grab the customers by their balls and tits and squeeze until you get the last pennies out of them! Plural "You" in this case refers to inhuman corporations, fully sanctioned as human beings by the US Supreme Court.
Government ought to be a neutral referee, but governments tend to like control, too, and when you add in unlimited lobbying by those inhuman corporations, BitTorrent never had a chance. The rules of the game are written by the most cheaply bribed politicians working for the least ethical businessmen.
In conclusion, we now have "government of the corporations, by the lawyers, for the richest 0.1%" ruling the earth.
(Con Man Donald, one of the least ethical businessmen and a self-confessed master of bribing politicians, probably thinks that quote comes from Honest Abe.)
I've been following them for some years. The best approach for continuous is not using pressure, but sound and vibrations to calculate the corresponding blood pressure. Several of them have gotten as far as clinical trials, but none of them is in the market yet. I think the main problem is the large size (on the order of a smartphone that you have to strap on).
I think they'll have better luck if they can do it with several smaller devices that communicate with a larger device (perhaps a smartphone that doesn't need to be worn) to correlate the data.
Not a threat. Just the Russian promise to outlive the author who says activity trackers don't work.
Actually, not even a promise, but I think data is good and useful. Definitely imagine that I am healthier for paying attention to it, and also definitely feel it is too soon to draw any conclusions.
I'd like to see some research on whether or not the author wears one. My initial hypothesis is "Hell, no!"
I'd probably give you a mod point if I ever got one to give.
I'll just add that I think the data is useful. Actually started with a non-wearable sleep tracking device. Not a very good approach, and I don't think they still sell them, but it basically uses a motion sensor to separate shallow sleep from deeper sleep. Currently wearing an Epson device that measures my pulse, too, and makes much better measurements of sleep.
For walking, I use both the Epson and my smartphone. (I'd name the brand but I'm so annoyed that I don't want to give them the ref.) Kind of weird, but I've started adjusting my daily activities to balance my walking so that I make the target each day. For example, group a couple of shorter errands on one day, while another day will be satisfied by one longer walk. Side effect is having to pay more attention to the weather for mission planning...
Closing with my usual attempt at a constructive suggestion, I wish someone was selling a continuous blood pressure meter. I think that data would be extremely revealing and possibly even useful.
You should stop lying or exaggerating. If you actually know what I'm talking about, then you could easily prove it as quickly as blather about it.
Actually I did code a website some years before the Internet went public. It was called a BBS in those days. Turns out it was a good idea, but I was about 10 or 15 years too early. There is now a fairly successful and at least 15-year-old website that has been using a somewhat similar approach to the main functions, though their financial model is problematic. They went the advertising route, and from my perspective its kind of saddening to see how the money distorted things. Could be much better. I guess if I had been more committed to the idea or had my present financial resources at that time, then it might be my successful website, but that's not how the history worked out, eh?
Doing it now? I'm sort of considering it... I suppose the main problem is my age after my 30-year detour. Also my bad attitude after too many personal experiences with startup companies that mostly didn't make it. At this point I'd prefer to limit my involvement to investments. There was once a time when you could even find people to invest in on Slashdot. These days? Not so much.
I think there is a much better financial model that no website or newswebsite is using. I've recommended it and suggested it and even advocated it to the point of offending people, but as far as I know, it remains untested. I'd even put some of my own money behind it if the opportunity existed, but as things stand, I feel entitled to sit back and laugh. Doubtless it's unjustified, but I guess we'll never know, will we?
Fortunately, I don't care about 4chan and won't miss it.
Hate typos. Meant to say "making", not "maker" near the bottom.
Also thinking I should have mentioned that the tool is question is McCaul. He serves on 4 committees, including "Science, Space and Technology" and has frequently proved he knows NOTHING about science. However, the big laugh is the "Ethics" committee, since one of my degrees included philosophy of the Socratic sort. What a SAD joke, though Trump is the biggest joke to day.
It's possible I'll get to vote anyway, but they rejected my ballot application the first time with several BS reasons (selected from a long list on the rejection form). Over the last few elections, it has been getting harder and harder to vote, and this latest voter-ID bogosity makes it much more difficult. And stupid.
The hilarious part is that my vote had already been rendered meaningless by the partisan gerrymandering and double-gerrymandering. My so-called Representative is such a worthless tool that they had to rejigger his district to keep it "safe". They are running out of room in the sacrificial districts where they pack in and waste the Democratic votes. They can't draw the district boundaries house by house! Or can they?
I sure hope it's worse than that from the dictators' perspective. The so-called Republicans (really former Dixiecrats "betrayed" by LBJ) have been driving Texas to the bottom so hard and making the state so cheap that a lot of damn Yankees have moved south. Maybe they are about to flip the state back to the Dems, even though the polls have trouble tracking and accounting for first-time-in-district voters. No evidence, but "some people are saying", as the Donald says.
(Also hurts them that Trump is killing the Hispanic vote. This latest insane TwitterWar is NOT the temperament of a potentially great president. If she would have just given him the damn blowjob as payback for maker her a winner, then none of this would have happened!)
Maybe you are sincere, but I've concluded that this thread is just a waste of time. Maybe it's just an artifact of inline posting that makes you look like an intellectually dishonest Sophist, but we don't need another religious war on that issue.
Good day, sir. I'm sorry you wasted so much of your time, but even sorrier that you wasted so much of mine.
It's kind of hard to take you seriously, but I'll make an attempt. I rather think I'm wasting my time and would recommend you do some background reading. However, the areas of your apparent ignorance are so broad that I am hard pressed to suggest a starting point.
In the case of a natural monopoly, excessive profits can become quite harmful. I think the obvious solution in the case of a true natural monopoly is careful government regulation and special taxation, with some of the tax revenue being invested in research to break the monopoly. You don't seem to understand the definition in Wikipedia, but it does talk about first mover advantage. There is some confusion there, but it's easier to use Windows as an example because a solution is also obvious.
Imagine that Microsoft were divided into 5 competing companies. Each new company would start with a copy of all of the source code and equal shares of the people and facilities. Each shareholder would get corresponding shares in each of the new companies. Some of the new companies would make good decisions, get more business, and grow. Others would do less well, but the important thing is that the competition would drive stronger improvements in the OS and applications. The Windows platform would continue to exist as a standard, but a public standard rather than a secret one. If the overall pace of innovation increased, then everyone would win. The model would be more like an amoeba family rather than a 'unified' cancer.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting post, and if I ever saw a mod point, I might give it to you, even though you only posed the questions.
Anyway, it's obvious that technology is influencing elections in many ways, but mostly for the worse. Just picking a few examples off the top of my head:
(1) Scientific polling that makes voting feel meaningless
(2) Precise gerrymandering that distorts the House of so-called Representatives
(3) Trump's self-immolation via Twitter
Still no funny comments and the ones modded insightful weren't, and the discussion is almost expired...
Of course the amazing thing is that Trump probably thinks the tweeting is helping his campaign. He doesn't even want to stop, though Hillary would be helping him greatly if this gimmick discouraged him from tweeting. Like Sun Tzu says, you shouldn't interfere when your enemy is punching himself in the face. (Actually, I'm still entertaining the hypothesis that Twitter actually brainwashed Trump with Alt-Right links.)
I still think it's kind of unfair for Hillary to exploit his weaknesses, but then again, I think Trump is asking for it. Near as I can tell, no one forced him into this ritual humiliation. Kind of a shame he didn't have any good friends who could persuade him not to, and if he thought Bill Clinton was being a good friend when he encouraged him to run against Bill's very own wife... Well, there goes any claim to high intelligence, as if the Donald's campaign hadn't been proof enough.
If there were some similar comments already, I would have appended mine. Nothing showed up yet, and the participation in Slashdot these days is so low that I'm not expecting much before the article dies. The moderation is not helping (as usual), but I have a new question about some discouraging "award" I recently received. Couldn't find out anything about it, so I guess I should care even less, eh?
Recommend everyone who thinks this is a good idea should read Cyber War . In short summary, America probably has good offensive capabilities, but pretty much NO defenses and HIGH vulnerability. The Chinese are actually best positioned to fight and win any cyber war, and I wouldn't even be surprised if they are framing the Russians right now...
However, my main disappointment just now is with the state of Slashdot. No prior mention of "defense"? Where has all the insight gone?
There must be an army of sock puppets giving "insightful" mod points to AC garbage that should be invisible to me.
Insight would be to note that Putin is taking advantage of the current electoral dysfunction of the USA to perpetrate large-scale war crimes in Syria. There was a time when politics stopped at the water's edge, but not now and Putin knows it.
In the debate itself insight would have been to note that Iran's increased power in the region is primarily due to Dubya's insane war against Iraq. Most of the current proxy wars are desperate attempts to contain Iran. The punchline is that they're still being funding with American money, added on top of the financial losses in Iraq itself. Maybe Afghanistan costs should be counted, too, but at least Bin Ladin was there at one time, so it's much harder to figure out who's to blame for that mess...
My own theory about posts like this is that the Russian hackers have taken over some dormant Slashdot accounts with low user numbers and have some of their best BS artists working them.
No equivalency between Hillary and Trump. She is not a witch, but she might burn you.
Certainly understand why you are too much of a coward to put your name on that piece.
What I can't understand is why it is visible. Did several pieces waste mod points on it, or do you own a herd of sock puppets with mod points?
Only branch of the discussion that seems to be close to the technical target, which is presumably why this aspect of the debate received "priority" treatment on Slashdot over the now passe sexual assault and the astounding promise to put his political opponent in prison if he wins. (How many times can he break the bottom of the barrel?)
The question of the accuracy of WikiLeaks is quite crucial. Anyone can release anything via WikiLeaks, and the potential for disinformation is boundless. Actually, we already know that some of the recent leaks have been tampered with because there are inconsistencies between versions that are supposed to be the same leaked information. Not really a technical issue, but it appears that in distancing themselves from the hacking, some of Putin's people screwed up rather badly.
Really hard for me to stay focused on such trivia. On the one hand, we have a Banana Republican leading a mob of rabid clowns. On the other hand, we have a nasty old lawyer. I don't like lawyers much, but she isn't a witch, there's no reason to burn her, and if she's a skilled lawyer then she'll probably do a good job in handling her clients' affairs, even if her clients are all of the American voters.
I think Trump has redefined the GOP brand. Now it stands for "Grab Our Pussies" and they'll never get the fishy smell out of it. (Apologies to the ocean joke with gawd.)
I think I have to say that I don't know enough about the company versus the protocol. Perhaps it is a mistake to link it to the "brand" or label BitTorrent, since I'm really talking about P2P as a philosophy that makes a lot of sense from a technical perspective. I think P2P networking should replace a lot of the giant infrastructure of the ISPs, but the problem is not technical, but economic and political.
Big infrastructure creates the economic potential for big profits and the political potential for control of the flow of information. BAD.
Limitation on "BAD". In the case of a natural monopoly, then we do need careful regulation and probably special taxation to fund research into ways to break the monopoly.
If Slashdot had a better economic model, one of the features that I would be most likely to support would be a recent-post editing feature for stupid typos, like the one in the original Subject: of this thread.
Gotta stop flogging that dead horse, but my next two targets would be (1) features to reduce the visibility of trolls and (2) improvements in the moderation. Actually, the recent-post editing doesn't matter that much to me, much as I hate the typos. It would probably be 3rd or lower on my list.
It might seem rational to you and me that we work (and play) together nicely, and that our computers could help us. Speaking in a broader sense, if there is some video or news item that a LOT of us want to see, then my computer could help nearby computers get that information, and they could help their neighbors, too.
Too bad no one makes a profit on being neighborly.
The way to maximum profits is CONTROL. You have to grab the customers by their balls and tits and squeeze until you get the last pennies out of them! Plural "You" in this case refers to inhuman corporations, fully sanctioned as human beings by the US Supreme Court.
Government ought to be a neutral referee, but governments tend to like control, too, and when you add in unlimited lobbying by those inhuman corporations, BitTorrent never had a chance. The rules of the game are written by the most cheaply bribed politicians working for the least ethical businessmen.
In conclusion, we now have "government of the corporations, by the lawyers, for the richest 0.1%" ruling the earth.
(Con Man Donald, one of the least ethical businessmen and a self-confessed master of bribing politicians, probably thinks that quote comes from Honest Abe.)
I've been following them for some years. The best approach for continuous is not using pressure, but sound and vibrations to calculate the corresponding blood pressure. Several of them have gotten as far as clinical trials, but none of them is in the market yet. I think the main problem is the large size (on the order of a smartphone that you have to strap on).
I think they'll have better luck if they can do it with several smaller devices that communicate with a larger device (perhaps a smartphone that doesn't need to be worn) to correlate the data.
Not a threat. Just the Russian promise to outlive the author who says activity trackers don't work.
Actually, not even a promise, but I think data is good and useful. Definitely imagine that I am healthier for paying attention to it, and also definitely feel it is too soon to draw any conclusions.
I'd like to see some research on whether or not the author wears one. My initial hypothesis is "Hell, no!"
I'd probably give you a mod point if I ever got one to give.
I'll just add that I think the data is useful. Actually started with a non-wearable sleep tracking device. Not a very good approach, and I don't think they still sell them, but it basically uses a motion sensor to separate shallow sleep from deeper sleep. Currently wearing an Epson device that measures my pulse, too, and makes much better measurements of sleep.
For walking, I use both the Epson and my smartphone. (I'd name the brand but I'm so annoyed that I don't want to give them the ref.) Kind of weird, but I've started adjusting my daily activities to balance my walking so that I make the target each day. For example, group a couple of shorter errands on one day, while another day will be satisfied by one longer walk. Side effect is having to pay more attention to the weather for mission planning...
Closing with my usual attempt at a constructive suggestion, I wish someone was selling a continuous blood pressure meter. I think that data would be extremely revealing and possibly even useful.
What part of "waste of time" is too complicated for you to understand?
What part of "waste of time" are you unable to understand?
You should stop lying or exaggerating. If you actually know what I'm talking about, then you could easily prove it as quickly as blather about it.
Actually I did code a website some years before the Internet went public. It was called a BBS in those days. Turns out it was a good idea, but I was about 10 or 15 years too early. There is now a fairly successful and at least 15-year-old website that has been using a somewhat similar approach to the main functions, though their financial model is problematic. They went the advertising route, and from my perspective its kind of saddening to see how the money distorted things. Could be much better. I guess if I had been more committed to the idea or had my present financial resources at that time, then it might be my successful website, but that's not how the history worked out, eh?
Doing it now? I'm sort of considering it... I suppose the main problem is my age after my 30-year detour. Also my bad attitude after too many personal experiences with startup companies that mostly didn't make it. At this point I'd prefer to limit my involvement to investments. There was once a time when you could even find people to invest in on Slashdot. These days? Not so much.
I think there is a much better financial model that no website or newswebsite is using. I've recommended it and suggested it and even advocated it to the point of offending people, but as far as I know, it remains untested. I'd even put some of my own money behind it if the opportunity existed, but as things stand, I feel entitled to sit back and laugh. Doubtless it's unjustified, but I guess we'll never know, will we?
Fortunately, I don't care about 4chan and won't miss it.
What part of "waste of time" are you continuing to be unable to understand?
What part of "waste of time" were you unable to understand?
Or perhaps I should ask why you value your own time so little?
I hope that mindless reply made you feel much better about backing your super-loser Donald.
Case one: You are sincere, probably a hater, and deserve nothing but pity.
Case two: You are paid to fake it. In which case your silver is worth more than your soul ever was.
What part of "waste of time" were you unable to understand?
If this had been an actual discussion, recent news would be worth mention.
Hate typos. Meant to say "making", not "maker" near the bottom.
Also thinking I should have mentioned that the tool is question is McCaul. He serves on 4 committees, including "Science, Space and Technology" and has frequently proved he knows NOTHING about science. However, the big laugh is the "Ethics" committee, since one of my degrees included philosophy of the Socratic sort. What a SAD joke, though Trump is the biggest joke to day.
It's possible I'll get to vote anyway, but they rejected my ballot application the first time with several BS reasons (selected from a long list on the rejection form). Over the last few elections, it has been getting harder and harder to vote, and this latest voter-ID bogosity makes it much more difficult. And stupid.
The hilarious part is that my vote had already been rendered meaningless by the partisan gerrymandering and double-gerrymandering. My so-called Representative is such a worthless tool that they had to rejigger his district to keep it "safe". They are running out of room in the sacrificial districts where they pack in and waste the Democratic votes. They can't draw the district boundaries house by house! Or can they?
I sure hope it's worse than that from the dictators' perspective. The so-called Republicans (really former Dixiecrats "betrayed" by LBJ) have been driving Texas to the bottom so hard and making the state so cheap that a lot of damn Yankees have moved south. Maybe they are about to flip the state back to the Dems, even though the polls have trouble tracking and accounting for first-time-in-district voters. No evidence, but "some people are saying", as the Donald says.
(Also hurts them that Trump is killing the Hispanic vote. This latest insane TwitterWar is NOT the temperament of a potentially great president. If she would have just given him the damn blowjob as payback for maker her a winner, then none of this would have happened!)
Maybe you are sincere, but I've concluded that this thread is just a waste of time. Maybe it's just an artifact of inline posting that makes you look like an intellectually dishonest Sophist, but we don't need another religious war on that issue.
Good day, sir. I'm sorry you wasted so much of your time, but even sorrier that you wasted so much of mine.
It's kind of hard to take you seriously, but I'll make an attempt. I rather think I'm wasting my time and would recommend you do some background reading. However, the areas of your apparent ignorance are so broad that I am hard pressed to suggest a starting point.
In the case of a natural monopoly, excessive profits can become quite harmful. I think the obvious solution in the case of a true natural monopoly is careful government regulation and special taxation, with some of the tax revenue being invested in research to break the monopoly. You don't seem to understand the definition in Wikipedia, but it does talk about first mover advantage. There is some confusion there, but it's easier to use Windows as an example because a solution is also obvious.
Imagine that Microsoft were divided into 5 competing companies. Each new company would start with a copy of all of the source code and equal shares of the people and facilities. Each shareholder would get corresponding shares in each of the new companies. Some of the new companies would make good decisions, get more business, and grow. Others would do less well, but the important thing is that the competition would drive stronger improvements in the OS and applications. The Windows platform would continue to exist as a standard, but a public standard rather than a secret one. If the overall pace of innovation increased, then everyone would win. The model would be more like an amoeba family rather than a 'unified' cancer.