Speaking as someone from western Europe, the problem with Huawei is that in geopolitical terms China is not an ally by any stretch of the imagination. The USA are. If there's any serious trouble, we do not have to worry about the USA shutting us off unless they decide at some point that we are no longer allies. The biggest worry is that equipment from the US has some backdoor (installed on behest of the government or whatever) that the Chinese can exploit.
Nice. I use Spotify, Dropbox, Speedtest (useful to test WiFi in rental properties), Shazam... but on iOS. Do those apps running on iPhones also send data to FB?
Exactly, it's the middle class who will end up funding UBI. And we do not need UBI just yet.
Still, it is an interesting idea for when we truly enter a "leisure society", i.e. a society where work is (almost) no longer necessary to obtain an income or to maintain society and our level of wealth. We're not there yet. Some people think that robots will usher in an era where it is not only unnecessary to work to obtain an income, it will be impossible to obtain an income by work, for the vast majority of people. The question is: how do we distribute wealth in such a society? The current semi-capitalist system distributes wealth (rather imperfectly) according to added value and ownership. For most people, the only way to add value is to work, and when there is no more work they will be left with nothing. Will all income flow those those people who - as Marx put it - own the means of production, i.e. the robots? Not a pretty picture, the rest of us will inevitably end up in terrafoam* reservations, guarded by robots, while the rich inherit the rest of the Earth.
If work is no longer the yardstick of one's worth, is socialism the only answer? Most socialist societies ended up distributing poverty, but in a society of abundance it might be the best system for distributing wealth. I'm not sure what the alternatives could be. And UBI might be a good way to transition to such a society. My biggest fear is how governments will handle the tremendous power that comes with controlling everyone's income. Even if everyone gets the same UBI, the rich still have easy means to augment that income, so with sufficient influence they could still push the government to lower UBI to subsistence level, for reasons of efficiency, or global warming, or to prepare for the space worm invasion or whatever, and the rest of us could still end up in terrafoam.
*) The free e-book "Manna" by Marshall Brain explores some of these issues and is an interesting read besides. The word "terrafoam" comes from that book, and refers to the material used to build cheap social housing in fenced off areas.
Exactly. There's a negative view of using smartphones regardless of how you are using them. If you are sitting quietly reading a paper book or newspaper, people think you're spending quality time. However if you are sitting quietly reading a book or newspaper on your smartphone, they think: "Oh great, he's glued to that thing again". Same if you have a few minutes at the bus stop or on the train. Use your cell phone, and older folks will shake their heads in disapproval. Whip out a book and they'll smile in approval.
Those countries (like most of Europe) run what is called a social democracy. Basically it's a democracy on a capitalist framework that respects property rights and such, but where the state assumes the duty of providing a basic level of care for everyone, and where they acknowledge (and act on) the need for government to regulate the market to some degree, either to address market failure, or to correct what they think are unacceptable inequalities.
Ugh, it looks terrible but maybe that's just me. I preferred PUBG by far... except that I was hopeless at that game. No threat indicators and (when I played it) godawful netcode; there were tricks to knowing where the enemy is and actually being able to hit them but somehow I never caught on (though I do pretty decent in any other shooter). And I wasn't the only one who got frustrated and gave up.
paid by everyone via taxes, without what seems like the bureaucracy of private or employer-paid insurance
We in the Netherlands went with a great combination of public and private health care: the expense of a partly publicly funded health care system combined with expensive commercial care providers and a mandatory private insurance. And costs, while not as high in the USA yet, are perpetually on the rise. The only ones happy with this scheme are the insurance companies, who sell us the insurance while at the same time placing an insane administrative burden on hospitals. By the way, if you think this sounds a little like Obamacare, that's because it is kind of similar. At least, that suffered from the same weakness: the insurance companies (though Obamacare might still have been better than the current system in the US, hard to say)
PM: "I need 20 new laptops, desks & chairs, a coffee machine and a water cooler, and an armored personnel carrier"
Procurement: "That's fine, they should be ready by the time your contractors show up for work"
PM: "Oh and I need a couple of thumb drives"
Procurement: "Erm... how about we schedule a meeting so we can review your exact requirements? Then we can go over the list of suppliers, request bids, and we'll have them in 3 to 4 business months"
AI still does a hell of a lot of good. But you're right, the organisation is being taken over by people with a "different agenda". Same as happened to Greenpeace.
because you can't study everything at the same time without making assumptions you can't justify yet. This happens all the time in social sciences. Before you can safely lump things together you have to study them separately.
Sure. It makes sense that abuse towards women is different in nature than abuse towards men, and that abuse towards women of color is different still. And to understand the nature, the causes and effects on the victims, and the perpetrators, you would have to study them separately. But the summary at least has no issues mentioning women of color as a separate class, then lumping them in at the same time. But most importantly: if you run a clickbaity headline like "Women are abused on Twitter every 30 seconds", then at least provide a basis of comparison even if you "don't have the time or resources" to also do an in depth study of abuse of men online. Is 30/s a lot? Or is it average or even below average?
Also read Seveneves, and I agree: an accessible and very enjoyable read.
I had opportunity to read a lot of other stuff. A few picks:
- World Without End by Ken Follet. This is a sequel to Pillars of the Earth. Both recommended
- The Three-body Problem by Liu Cixin. A great SF read even if it suffers a bit from pacing here and there.
- I recently found out that Cory Doctorow also writes fiction so I picked up a bunch of his novels and short stories. Walkaway, Pirate Cinema, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, For the Win and a few others. Easy reads, some are a bit better than others but all are recommended.
- Some fantasy too: I enjoyed the Legends of the First Empire series by M.J. Sullivan.
I agree about Rand, those two fiction titles make for decent reading, and present some interesting ideas. By the way, Atlas Shrugged was also turned into a movie (or rather a miniseries). I watched that this year. It's horrible, do not waste your time on that one.
So you think you ought to get a discount on your health insurance for healthy living. Do you also think it is fair that you pay way more premium for your pension (if you have a collective one), and that you pay more tax if your country offers a state pension, because you are much more likely to live to an old age than the candy eating fatass? I think it was the BBC who did a short study into this and came to the conclusion that when you add everything up it's you, not the fatass, who is getting a sweet deal. Of course that depends a lot on how your country manages pensions and health care.
In socialized/universal health care the situation may get even worse if you take people's life styles into account. Since everyone is insured by law without exception, the government may simply decide to curb cost by outlawing unhealthy living. No more smoking, no more fatty foods, no more candy bars. No more drinking either. Oh, and no more jogging for you either since it's murder on your knees and we don't want to have to replace them when you get older.
Trust me, the "targeted" ads are not a whole lot better.
I'm not against such information being collected per se, if it benefits me directly. That most certainly doesn't include better ads, but things like better suggestions from Netflix and Siri or Alexa understanding me and perhaps anticipating some of my habits. That's all fine. What I do have issues with:
- How that information is being used for other purposes (ads)
- To whom that information is being sold
- How well that information is protected
- What laws are in place to safeguard against misuse, and what penalties apply
The problem with many companies who are after my data is not that they collect the data, or that they might be tempted to misuse it. If they say they collect the data for benign purpose X, and the law says they can't use it for anything else or the CEO ends up in prison, then I am willing to extend some trust towards their good intentions. But there are no such laws and no such promises, and for most companies, abusing my data is the core of their business model.
He was a gifted one man focus group. Apple's success has been attributed to the idea that Apple didn't design for focus groups or market segments but for Steve Jobs, a tech aficionado with decent taste and an eye for detail.
Why would they even allow these apps on equipment that is also used to watch pirated entertainment? This sort of equipment should be locked down, with stuff like Bluetooth (and sometimes WiFi) physically disabled, USB ports locked, and connectivity restricted to the tactical network or whatever. You’ll have a hard time getting compromised apps on these terminals to exploit that weakness, let alone getting your apps to phone home. And that’s nothing new, rules for equipment running stuff at a certain level of classification already exist. If someone decided to distribute this app, which displays objectives, troop positions, fire missions etc. to every soldier on BYOD devices or open military issued ones, then someone “done messed up but good.”
As for soldiers using them, you’re only partly right. They will use these toys if they are deemed useful (the article suggests that this is the case). However if something gets in the way, the software doesn’t work, the network is down or there is a hardware issue, they will drop them in a heartbeat and fall back on other tools. Its not an aversion to high tech (on the contrary, they are just as eager to try new things as the rest of us are). Rather, it’s a low tolerance for defects. In the field, one does not have the time to fiddle around with iffy equipment.
Falling shot should be pretty safe. But you could fly a drone pretty high and still pose a danger to air traffic, while being pretty hard to hit with a shotgun. And I don't know if a shotgun is all that effective against a drone at range.
Sure, because other than their economic agenda, India and Poland were in a totally similar situation... Come on. Poland did not have a poor underclass at the size and level of poverty that India did. And Poland wasn't all that underdeveloped, it was a relatively modern nation.
If India focuses solely on fighting poverty, they will be fighting poverty forever. Instead, they choose to also stimulate high tech enterprises. As to allocation of funds: it looks like India saves money by building and launching such satellites themselves rather than buying sats and launches abroad, while at the same time stimulating their own economy, providing local jobs, a little national pride, and perhaps some inspiration to future engineers. By the way, their space program budget is a tiny fraction of their rural development program, it's not like one precludes the other. As for the nukes: perhaps they feel that they need some of them, what with having a pissed-off neighbour who also has nukes.
Almost all power generated in Norway is from hydro; their capacity is something like 105% of their domestic requirement (and they have loads of room to increase that if needed). In that sense they are blessed.
So in this case I wonder if the building is really using geothermal power, or if they are just storing heat underground and remove it when needed?
Slashdot Mirror
Speaking as someone from western Europe, the problem with Huawei is that in geopolitical terms China is not an ally by any stretch of the imagination. The USA are. If there's any serious trouble, we do not have to worry about the USA shutting us off unless they decide at some point that we are no longer allies. The biggest worry is that equipment from the US has some backdoor (installed on behest of the government or whatever) that the Chinese can exploit.
Buyback rates will have to drop at some point. How long do you think those utilities can afford to buy power at consumer rates?
Nice. I use Spotify, Dropbox, Speedtest (useful to test WiFi in rental properties), Shazam... but on iOS. Do those apps running on iPhones also send data to FB?
It's the same as with cameras: the best one is... the one you have with you.
Exactly, it's the middle class who will end up funding UBI. And we do not need UBI just yet.
Still, it is an interesting idea for when we truly enter a "leisure society", i.e. a society where work is (almost) no longer necessary to obtain an income or to maintain society and our level of wealth. We're not there yet. Some people think that robots will usher in an era where it is not only unnecessary to work to obtain an income, it will be impossible to obtain an income by work, for the vast majority of people. The question is: how do we distribute wealth in such a society? The current semi-capitalist system distributes wealth (rather imperfectly) according to added value and ownership. For most people, the only way to add value is to work, and when there is no more work they will be left with nothing. Will all income flow those those people who - as Marx put it - own the means of production, i.e. the robots? Not a pretty picture, the rest of us will inevitably end up in terrafoam* reservations, guarded by robots, while the rich inherit the rest of the Earth.
If work is no longer the yardstick of one's worth, is socialism the only answer? Most socialist societies ended up distributing poverty, but in a society of abundance it might be the best system for distributing wealth. I'm not sure what the alternatives could be. And UBI might be a good way to transition to such a society. My biggest fear is how governments will handle the tremendous power that comes with controlling everyone's income. Even if everyone gets the same UBI, the rich still have easy means to augment that income, so with sufficient influence they could still push the government to lower UBI to subsistence level, for reasons of efficiency, or global warming, or to prepare for the space worm invasion or whatever, and the rest of us could still end up in terrafoam.
*) The free e-book "Manna" by Marshall Brain explores some of these issues and is an interesting read besides. The word "terrafoam" comes from that book, and refers to the material used to build cheap social housing in fenced off areas.
Exactly. There's a negative view of using smartphones regardless of how you are using them. If you are sitting quietly reading a paper book or newspaper, people think you're spending quality time. However if you are sitting quietly reading a book or newspaper on your smartphone, they think: "Oh great, he's glued to that thing again". Same if you have a few minutes at the bus stop or on the train. Use your cell phone, and older folks will shake their heads in disapproval. Whip out a book and they'll smile in approval.
Those countries (like most of Europe) run what is called a social democracy. Basically it's a democracy on a capitalist framework that respects property rights and such, but where the state assumes the duty of providing a basic level of care for everyone, and where they acknowledge (and act on) the need for government to regulate the market to some degree, either to address market failure, or to correct what they think are unacceptable inequalities.
Free BR game with an approachable aesthetic
Ugh, it looks terrible but maybe that's just me. I preferred PUBG by far... except that I was hopeless at that game. No threat indicators and (when I played it) godawful netcode; there were tricks to knowing where the enemy is and actually being able to hit them but somehow I never caught on (though I do pretty decent in any other shooter). And I wasn't the only one who got frustrated and gave up.
paid by everyone via taxes, without what seems like the bureaucracy of private or employer-paid insurance
We in the Netherlands went with a great combination of public and private health care: the expense of a partly publicly funded health care system combined with expensive commercial care providers and a mandatory private insurance. And costs, while not as high in the USA yet, are perpetually on the rise. The only ones happy with this scheme are the insurance companies, who sell us the insurance while at the same time placing an insane administrative burden on hospitals. By the way, if you think this sounds a little like Obamacare, that's because it is kind of similar. At least, that suffered from the same weakness: the insurance companies (though Obamacare might still have been better than the current system in the US, hard to say)
My experience (in a different country though):
PM: "I need 20 new laptops, desks & chairs, a coffee machine and a water cooler, and an armored personnel carrier"
Procurement: "That's fine, they should be ready by the time your contractors show up for work"
PM: "Oh and I need a couple of thumb drives"
Procurement: "Erm... how about we schedule a meeting so we can review your exact requirements? Then we can go over the list of suppliers, request bids, and we'll have them in 3 to 4 business months"
AI still does a hell of a lot of good. But you're right, the organisation is being taken over by people with a "different agenda". Same as happened to Greenpeace.
because you can't study everything at the same time without making assumptions you can't justify yet. This happens all the time in social sciences. Before you can safely lump things together you have to study them separately.
Sure. It makes sense that abuse towards women is different in nature than abuse towards men, and that abuse towards women of color is different still. And to understand the nature, the causes and effects on the victims, and the perpetrators, you would have to study them separately. But the summary at least has no issues mentioning women of color as a separate class, then lumping them in at the same time. But most importantly: if you run a clickbaity headline like "Women are abused on Twitter every 30 seconds", then at least provide a basis of comparison even if you "don't have the time or resources" to also do an in depth study of abuse of men online. Is 30/s a lot? Or is it average or even below average?
Also read Seveneves, and I agree: an accessible and very enjoyable read.
I had opportunity to read a lot of other stuff. A few picks:
- World Without End by Ken Follet. This is a sequel to Pillars of the Earth. Both recommended
- The Three-body Problem by Liu Cixin. A great SF read even if it suffers a bit from pacing here and there.
- I recently found out that Cory Doctorow also writes fiction so I picked up a bunch of his novels and short stories. Walkaway, Pirate Cinema, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, For the Win and a few others. Easy reads, some are a bit better than others but all are recommended.
- Some fantasy too: I enjoyed the Legends of the First Empire series by M.J. Sullivan.
I agree about Rand, those two fiction titles make for decent reading, and present some interesting ideas. By the way, Atlas Shrugged was also turned into a movie (or rather a miniseries). I watched that this year. It's horrible, do not waste your time on that one.
Even then, people might still cheat. There was a nice video of a CS/Go player being caught red handed cheating in a LAN tournament. Ah, here it is
So you think you ought to get a discount on your health insurance for healthy living. Do you also think it is fair that you pay way more premium for your pension (if you have a collective one), and that you pay more tax if your country offers a state pension, because you are much more likely to live to an old age than the candy eating fatass? I think it was the BBC who did a short study into this and came to the conclusion that when you add everything up it's you, not the fatass, who is getting a sweet deal. Of course that depends a lot on how your country manages pensions and health care.
In socialized/universal health care the situation may get even worse if you take people's life styles into account. Since everyone is insured by law without exception, the government may simply decide to curb cost by outlawing unhealthy living. No more smoking, no more fatty foods, no more candy bars. No more drinking either. Oh, and no more jogging for you either since it's murder on your knees and we don't want to have to replace them when you get older.
Trust me, the "targeted" ads are not a whole lot better.
I'm not against such information being collected per se, if it benefits me directly. That most certainly doesn't include better ads, but things like better suggestions from Netflix and Siri or Alexa understanding me and perhaps anticipating some of my habits. That's all fine. What I do have issues with:
- How that information is being used for other purposes (ads)
- To whom that information is being sold
- How well that information is protected
- What laws are in place to safeguard against misuse, and what penalties apply
The problem with many companies who are after my data is not that they collect the data, or that they might be tempted to misuse it. If they say they collect the data for benign purpose X, and the law says they can't use it for anything else or the CEO ends up in prison, then I am willing to extend some trust towards their good intentions. But there are no such laws and no such promises, and for most companies, abusing my data is the core of their business model.
He was a gifted one man focus group. Apple's success has been attributed to the idea that Apple didn't design for focus groups or market segments but for Steve Jobs, a tech aficionado with decent taste and an eye for detail.
Nothing but losers in this story. Including the editor. And, I suppose, those of us wasting our time reading it.
Why would they even allow these apps on equipment that is also used to watch pirated entertainment? This sort of equipment should be locked down, with stuff like Bluetooth (and sometimes WiFi) physically disabled, USB ports locked, and connectivity restricted to the tactical network or whatever. You’ll have a hard time getting compromised apps on these terminals to exploit that weakness, let alone getting your apps to phone home. And that’s nothing new, rules for equipment running stuff at a certain level of classification already exist. If someone decided to distribute this app, which displays objectives, troop positions, fire missions etc. to every soldier on BYOD devices or open military issued ones, then someone “done messed up but good.”
As for soldiers using them, you’re only partly right. They will use these toys if they are deemed useful (the article suggests that this is the case). However if something gets in the way, the software doesn’t work, the network is down or there is a hardware issue, they will drop them in a heartbeat and fall back on other tools. Its not an aversion to high tech (on the contrary, they are just as eager to try new things as the rest of us are). Rather, it’s a low tolerance for defects. In the field, one does not have the time to fiddle around with iffy equipment.
basically limiting the audience to companies and eccentric millionaires.
And scammers.
Well, if you set up a committee to find offensive stuff, they will find it. Guaranteed. Even if they - as in this case - have to dig exceedingly deep.
Falling shot should be pretty safe. But you could fly a drone pretty high and still pose a danger to air traffic, while being pretty hard to hit with a shotgun. And I don't know if a shotgun is all that effective against a drone at range.
Sure, because other than their economic agenda, India and Poland were in a totally similar situation... Come on. Poland did not have a poor underclass at the size and level of poverty that India did. And Poland wasn't all that underdeveloped, it was a relatively modern nation.
If India focuses solely on fighting poverty, they will be fighting poverty forever. Instead, they choose to also stimulate high tech enterprises. As to allocation of funds: it looks like India saves money by building and launching such satellites themselves rather than buying sats and launches abroad, while at the same time stimulating their own economy, providing local jobs, a little national pride, and perhaps some inspiration to future engineers. By the way, their space program budget is a tiny fraction of their rural development program, it's not like one precludes the other. As for the nukes: perhaps they feel that they need some of them, what with having a pissed-off neighbour who also has nukes.
Almost all power generated in Norway is from hydro; their capacity is something like 105% of their domestic requirement (and they have loads of room to increase that if needed). In that sense they are blessed.
So in this case I wonder if the building is really using geothermal power, or if they are just storing heat underground and remove it when needed?