Our current state of affairs isn't caused by technology, although technology makes the issue more efficient in some areas. It's cause by political decisions, firstly a refusal by government to do its job and regulate corporations and thereby fulfil its duty to protect its citizenry from them (pollution, civil rights abuses, and exploitation both in the US and overseas), and secondly by allowing a concentration of wealth and power into an ever smaller group of democratically unaccountable individuals who are turning democratic infrastructure into a plaything for their own petty personal political interests. Technology used to support these ends is a symptom, not a cause. Current ICT development is mostly aimed at further empowering the rich and disempowering the majority. That's not a mistake, that's by design.
Religion is merely one of many tools of the state used to exert control over its population. Thankfully, rates of atheism, agnosticism and religious non-observance are much higher in Europe than in the US and therefore its impact is lesser. I don't think many countries do rabid fundamentalism and legislation based on moral outrage better than the USA.
In the UK, where the NHS is the only real game in town and health insurance is a national govt. system, doctors are allocated budgets for the numbers of patients that they have enrolled on their books. It's in their interests to spend as little as possible on keeping their patients as healthy as possible in order to conserve their budgets. The NHS is one of the best health services in the world in terms of outcomes for per capita spending. Well, that's the last time I heard. The current UK right-wing* administration are doing their best to wreck it.
*right-wing in the UK is still thankfully far left of the Democrats in the USA.
It's not that anyone's gaming the system, it's just that Google thinks that if you hide your identity or personal information, you must be a loony paranoid conspiracy theorist and so it just gives you what it thinks you want; loony paranoid conspiracy theories.
You mean like interacting with a keyword search or clicking on a preference tick box? The rest of the form would be invisible and auto-filled.
I never let browsers store any of my login information. I take my laptop out and about a lot so I assume that it'll get lost or stolen sooner or later (luckily hasn't happened yet). Imagine losing your laptop with easily find-able passwords on it?
I always use a separate, local, encrypted password manager and copy and paste the credentials across, then the paste-board automatically wipes. Using a password manager also means that I use the longest, strongest possible passwords and I can easily backup the encrypted password database.
How many of those photos and videos of cats on Facebook are Russian while hiding their true identity and nationality? Are we being covertly influenced by Russian cats?
Oh, did I mention that Google also helps oppressive regimes to identify political movements and their members in order to commit human rights abuses, including torture and murder?
What? An advertising corporation (Google) abusing its monopoly? Who'd a thunk it? So are we not to trust Google's search results anymore?
I gave up when I heard that they took a big chunk of cash from BP during the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster to promote pro BP results and hide negative coverage of the spill and the so called cleanup as much as possible.
Yep, looks like the bit IT and media companies are doing their best to turn the internet into cable TV. You have to buy their streaming devices (the new version of set top boxes) to watch their shows and films. Soon, the "chord cutters" will be able to enjoy the traditional array of boxes/devices, multiple subscriptions, and bundled stuff they'll never watch just like the good ol' days.
Somebody write a bot. Somebody write a bot. Somebody write a bot. Somebody write a bot... Can we please have Rick Astley on all Bose and Sonos IoT speakers? Actually, on everything IoT. Someone's got to put and end to this IoT nonsense and Rick Astley might just be the guy to do it:)))
It's pretty difficult to trade Bitcoin if you haven't got any real money with a government to back it up. Bitcoin is a virtual commodity. Don't invest in it what you can't afford to lose.
...supermarkets in the UK have had remote hand-held bar code readers for its customers for the last couple of decades. You scan your shopping and then either take in home yourself or leave it at customer service, who'll deliver it for free the next day. No need for guards on the doors or people spying on them because, as it turns out, their customers are pretty honest and trustworthy.
Like when you sign a piece of paper that says I get to punch you. You don't have any recourse after that. Nope. I'm just allowed to punch you whenever I want for the rest of your life.
So you think a contract can nullify criminal law? Regardless of what anybody writes in an agreement, punching someone is criminal assault, with very few exceptions and they have very specific conditions, e.g. boxing and martial arts.
If an advertiser or software developer breaks the law, they can be prosecuted like everyone else.
Re: the Monopoly money analogy, like digital commodities such as Bitcoin, Monopoly money has no government and tax paying population to back it up. You can't have a currency without these.
Macroeconomics 101: All currency is actually debt which a government promises to pay back based on the labour and resources (i.e. tax paying population) under its control. A government issues currency (debt) and allocates it according to national and political interests. The working population then pay off that debt through labour, trade, and natural resources. That's how countries work. In essence, it's the nation that is the security underwriting a currency.
There's no such security underlying Bitcoin, which is a virtual commodity, so it can vaporise in seconds without any consequence for people who don't hold Bitcoin. Nobody can be held to account to re-inflate the value of Bitcoin. Which government or bank is going to do that?
Do you think that, since they don't know what's causing these symptoms, perhaps they could lay off calling it an attack? You know, until they have some evidence. Or is it now US foreign policy to characterise everything that they don't understand that affects US personnel as an attack?
They may find that the robots will require protection from pedestrians. I can imagine irate people having been (almost) run over or shoved/scared out of the way might react somewhat aggressively towards a robot and any subsequent robots that they meet. After all, they're machines, not people with feelings and rights that can apologise and make amends.
I can also see municipalities being put under pressure to put up barriers to restrict their access to some areas. Not sure how that'd affect people who need to use mobility aids though.
The Tea Party were a tiny movement whose actual demands closely match those of the industrialists, e.g. the Koch family, who fund them, and the corporate media outlets, e.g. Fox News and News International, that also promote exactly the same line. The Tea Party doesn't protest, it rallies in support of the very policies that are bankrupting the USA and creating massive wealth and income inequality.
4 years of no Ajit Pai in the media or doing what he does to the internet would still be bliss. It'd also put a damper on his successors' ambitions if he's languishing in a US prison. But yeah, 7 years per count would be even better:)
Slashdot Mirror
Our current state of affairs isn't caused by technology, although technology makes the issue more efficient in some areas. It's cause by political decisions, firstly a refusal by government to do its job and regulate corporations and thereby fulfil its duty to protect its citizenry from them (pollution, civil rights abuses, and exploitation both in the US and overseas), and secondly by allowing a concentration of wealth and power into an ever smaller group of democratically unaccountable individuals who are turning democratic infrastructure into a plaything for their own petty personal political interests. Technology used to support these ends is a symptom, not a cause. Current ICT development is mostly aimed at further empowering the rich and disempowering the majority. That's not a mistake, that's by design.
Religion is merely one of many tools of the state used to exert control over its population. Thankfully, rates of atheism, agnosticism and religious non-observance are much higher in Europe than in the US and therefore its impact is lesser. I don't think many countries do rabid fundamentalism and legislation based on moral outrage better than the USA.
In the UK, where the NHS is the only real game in town and health insurance is a national govt. system, doctors are allocated budgets for the numbers of patients that they have enrolled on their books. It's in their interests to spend as little as possible on keeping their patients as healthy as possible in order to conserve their budgets. The NHS is one of the best health services in the world in terms of outcomes for per capita spending. Well, that's the last time I heard. The current UK right-wing* administration are doing their best to wreck it.
*right-wing in the UK is still thankfully far left of the Democrats in the USA.
So what do you get if you search for climate change in Google?
It's not that anyone's gaming the system, it's just that Google thinks that if you hide your identity or personal information, you must be a loony paranoid conspiracy theorist and so it just gives you what it thinks you want; loony paranoid conspiracy theories.
You mean like interacting with a keyword search or clicking on a preference tick box? The rest of the form would be invisible and auto-filled.
I never let browsers store any of my login information. I take my laptop out and about a lot so I assume that it'll get lost or stolen sooner or later (luckily hasn't happened yet). Imagine losing your laptop with easily find-able passwords on it?
I always use a separate, local, encrypted password manager and copy and paste the credentials across, then the paste-board automatically wipes. Using a password manager also means that I use the longest, strongest possible passwords and I can easily backup the encrypted password database.
How many of those photos and videos of cats on Facebook are Russian while hiding their true identity and nationality? Are we being covertly influenced by Russian cats?
Oh, did I mention that Google also helps oppressive regimes to identify political movements and their members in order to commit human rights abuses, including torture and murder?
What? An advertising corporation (Google) abusing its monopoly? Who'd a thunk it? So are we not to trust Google's search results anymore?
I gave up when I heard that they took a big chunk of cash from BP during the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster to promote pro BP results and hide negative coverage of the spill and the so called cleanup as much as possible.
Yep, looks like the bit IT and media companies are doing their best to turn the internet into cable TV. You have to buy their streaming devices (the new version of set top boxes) to watch their shows and films. Soon, the "chord cutters" will be able to enjoy the traditional array of boxes/devices, multiple subscriptions, and bundled stuff they'll never watch just like the good ol' days.
Somebody write a bot. Somebody write a bot. Somebody write a bot. Somebody write a bot... Can we please have Rick Astley on all Bose and Sonos IoT speakers? Actually, on everything IoT. Someone's got to put and end to this IoT nonsense and Rick Astley might just be the guy to do it :)))
It's pretty difficult to trade Bitcoin if you haven't got any real money with a government to back it up. Bitcoin is a virtual commodity. Don't invest in it what you can't afford to lose.
designed by idiots and coded by minimum wage morons presumably somewhere in asia.
Why Asia? You can find minimum wage morons anywhere, especially in 'Murica.
...supermarkets in the UK have had remote hand-held bar code readers for its customers for the last couple of decades. You scan your shopping and then either take in home yourself or leave it at customer service, who'll deliver it for free the next day. No need for guards on the doors or people spying on them because, as it turns out, their customers are pretty honest and trustworthy.
...for this bubble to burst. I wanna see the look on those investors' faces when they watch the price of their Bitcoin fall.
...are animals too! But then an awful lot of dedicated 'animal lovers' have strong misanthropic tendencies.
You mean Apple Inc., the corporation that spend over $1 billion a year on advertising?
Like when you sign a piece of paper that says I get to punch you. You don't have any recourse after that. Nope. I'm just allowed to punch you whenever I want for the rest of your life.
So you think a contract can nullify criminal law? Regardless of what anybody writes in an agreement, punching someone is criminal assault, with very few exceptions and they have very specific conditions, e.g. boxing and martial arts.
If an advertiser or software developer breaks the law, they can be prosecuted like everyone else.
"Capillary dilation of the so-called blush response? Fluctuation of the pupil? Involuntary dilation of the iris?" - Dr. Eldon Tyrell, Blade Runner
Re: the Monopoly money analogy, like digital commodities such as Bitcoin, Monopoly money has no government and tax paying population to back it up. You can't have a currency without these.
Macroeconomics 101: All currency is actually debt which a government promises to pay back based on the labour and resources (i.e. tax paying population) under its control. A government issues currency (debt) and allocates it according to national and political interests. The working population then pay off that debt through labour, trade, and natural resources. That's how countries work. In essence, it's the nation that is the security underwriting a currency.
There's no such security underlying Bitcoin, which is a virtual commodity, so it can vaporise in seconds without any consequence for people who don't hold Bitcoin. Nobody can be held to account to re-inflate the value of Bitcoin. Which government or bank is going to do that?
Do you think that, since they don't know what's causing these symptoms, perhaps they could lay off calling it an attack? You know, until they have some evidence. Or is it now US foreign policy to characterise everything that they don't understand that affects US personnel as an attack?
Future headline: Pop!
They may find that the robots will require protection from pedestrians. I can imagine irate people having been (almost) run over or shoved/scared out of the way might react somewhat aggressively towards a robot and any subsequent robots that they meet. After all, they're machines, not people with feelings and rights that can apologise and make amends.
I can also see municipalities being put under pressure to put up barriers to restrict their access to some areas. Not sure how that'd affect people who need to use mobility aids though.
The Tea Party were a tiny movement whose actual demands closely match those of the industrialists, e.g. the Koch family, who fund them, and the corporate media outlets, e.g. Fox News and News International, that also promote exactly the same line. The Tea Party doesn't protest, it rallies in support of the very policies that are bankrupting the USA and creating massive wealth and income inequality.
4 years of no Ajit Pai in the media or doing what he does to the internet would still be bliss. It'd also put a damper on his successors' ambitions if he's languishing in a US prison. But yeah, 7 years per count would be even better :)