Nope. Not in any country I've been driving in at any rate. Pedestrians crossing a street where there's no traffic light or zebra crossing do NOT have right of way, though it stands to reason that this is no excuse to run them over. If a pedestrian tries to cross the street where he shouldn't and you narrowly avoid hitting him, no cop is going to give you a ticket since you have right of way. Do the same at a zebra crossing, and you get fined.
More likely, the owner will be responsible for taking out insurance, with the insurance companies setting premiums to cover what they figure the risk is. Auto makers might opt to cover the insurance costs for the owners to show faith in their product.
In normal countries, that means that victims, owners or insurers can sue the designers and manufacturers if gross negligence or deliberate underselling of the risks can be shown. In countries with sillier court systems like the US, it means that no matter what the circumstances, victims will be able to sue everyone else into oblivion.
The solution proposed by Bayer is to spread out diverting drivers to different routes. You'd think that happens automatically as the shortcuts fill up and the apps start routing around those blockages, but the problem is that the traffic data available to the apps tend to lag quite a bit. Drivers know this. And that's why that video of the simulation hasn't convinced me. When apps suggest a detour but the off-ramp to that detour is congested, people often elect not to take the detour even if the app tells them it's faster. And once the freeway starts moving again, I usually see that "residual congestion" at the off-ramp clear in seconds, no one chooses the detour anymore in that case and just drives on instead.
I'd think that Pinkertons and other corporate surveillance firms would only be deployed in case of a concrete suspicion, otherwise it'd be prohibitively expensive. Random searches are permissible in a lot of cases. In several European countries, that means this has to be specifically mentioned to in the employment contract, and the measure needs to be proportional to the risk. In case of most companies that would be limited to searching bags and suitcases, but in high risk / high value environments it can also include personal searches. Eavesdropping on personal communications is a big no-no however. Companies may ask that you leave your personal cellphone in a locker, but they can't listen in when you take it onto the premises.
BTW German staff councils appear to have to be informed on everything. I worked for a large multinational for a while; in our department having to "inform the german staff council" was considered a shit detail and it became something of a running joke trying to pass it on to the most junior staff member or the one absentee in the meeting. It's a pain but then again, at least they have privacy laws that are actually being looked after; the councils seem to take that responsibility very seriously.
I thought corporate taxes in the US were insanely high, compared to Europe for instance. Or is this a classic case of high taxes and numerous loopholes that are only available to a happy few megacorps?
I have to applaud the summary for calling it a ledger, because that’s what blockchain is, nothing magical or mysterious to it. Immutable? Even if it were, it still doesn’t matter. Not if you cannot ensure that the numbers entered into the ledger are actually correct. Voting requires a human chain of custody from ballot to results, with any human smart enough to count being able to oversee or verify the voting and counting process.
If you break the rules you should be punished. But this is not really punishing through clearly defined laws and due process with the right to appeal. This is doling out demerit points that are in themselves meaningless (thus not contestable), but now appear to add up to some serious consequences. The scary part is that the government is lumping in criminal behaviour, misdemeanors, and "socially undesirable" behaviour all in one points system, which basically means they get to tell you what being a virtuous person means, and get to enforce those rules.
Also, the punishment should fit the crime. Being banned from trains and planes is a fitting punishment for someone who repeatedly smokes on a non smoking train, or harasses the flight attendants. It is not appropriate for not paying your parking tickets.
Not at all the same business or scale, by the sound of it. Even so, aren't you sharing data with a lot more companies? For instance, if you collect monthly fees from customers by direct debit, you are sharing personal data with their banks.
Under the GDPR as well as the DPA (in the USA), the data controller (the entity collecting the data) remains responsible for what happens to the data. Data processors (3rd parties, in your example PayPal US) are very limited in what they can do with personal data they received from data controllers. Under the DPA for instance, they can only pass that data on to others (4th parties?) 1) with the data subject's explicit permission (not just given in ToS), or 2) under specific provisions set down in the law. For example: aggregated and de-anonimized data can sometimes be shared (with the caveat that de-anonymized data can often trivially be linked to a specific person, which is a separate issue)
How does the GDPR account for data shared with an entity in a country that has insufficient data protection laws? Keep in mind that the data controller is always responsible for what happens with the data, so if something gets shared along such a route, they get the fine.
A good many of these seem legit: companies to which PayPal has outsourced work, or partners such as banks, which all form an integral part of PayPal's actual operation. The shady ones are the companies listed under "marketing and communications". But all in all there aren't many shocking revelations in there. The sheer number seems high until you look at the list, and realise that this is what comes with running a global service.
What we see there in some cases that "shared data" also includes data collected by embedded crap from 3rd parties such as FaceBook (which pretty much every site has these days). "Advertising ID and device ID to segment user groups based on app behaviour, encrypted e-mail address associated with PayPal users (without indicating account relationship), IP Address, Anonymous ID generated by cookies, pixel tags or similar technologies embedded in webpages, ads and emails delivered to users. Mobile advertiser ID, IP Address and other metadata via Facebook SDK in mobile apps." Yeah, just about what we expected, and it's good that they actually include this sort of stuff on the list.
Here's an odd entry: Carrenza Limited (UK) | To hose a marketing database | Name, address, email address, business name, domain name, account status, account preferences, type and nature of the PayPal services offered or used, and relevant transaction information. I just wish that wasn't a typo...
If you need to build, use and scrap a truck just to fuel up that car, springing for a newer better model instead might be indeed the better course of action.
if the EU wants censorship, they should either censor the content themselves or block the sites they don't like
Both of these actions are likely to be met by very strong opposition from national governments, civil liberty activists as well as the general populace. So instead they make rules that place the burden on websites. Those rules are - by design, I suspect - onerous, strict, with heavy penalties and at the same time vague about where and when they apply. The result is that the larger sites, who can afford smart or manual filters, will apply censorship "voluntarily" in order to remain on the safe side of the law. Especially where it concerns content they themselves disagree with. The result is, as a clever MEP called it (might have been Reda), privatised censorship. With no oversight and no political accountability.
Anyone should be able to contribute, but celebrity status forcing a disproportionate level of attention in a field someone is unfamiliar with can be extremely damaging
I do not want to speak ill of anyone (least of all the dead), but amen to that! And that goes for the "field" of politics as well.
There was a moving interview this morning with the chairman of the (Dutch) ALS foundation, about how Hawking served as an inspiration for them. In more ways than one he was an extraordinary human being.
If we're going to approach it from a cultural or ethnic point of view, I can guarantee you that we'll never arrive at a satisfactory solution. We could make like Noah and pick 2 of each, we'd either end up with a photo of a huge group of people, or some small rare ethnic groups will complain that they weren't included. Not to mention the handicapped, midgets, or same-sex couples. And who gets to stand in the center? Perhaps we could use a picture of the 4 major races, something like this little beaut'
I think something like the Voyager plaque is pretty good for the purpose, even though the people are a bit on the white side, and it's of course the Patriarchy that gets to say 'hi'. All stuff we can fix... as long as we don't end up sending the Greendale Human Being to represent us.
Riding the train is great. Changing trains, getting to the station or to your final destination: not so much, unless you're lucky. When I lived in the city, taking the train to work was pretty much a door-to-door journey. Now that I'm out in the sticks, I drive to work. We live close to a station but changing trains 2 times sucks and is a colossal time waster. Even on the worst of days, driving is much faster. Plus I can swing by the supermarket after work to pick up some stuff, that sort of thing, saving even more time.
Electric autonomous vehicles might well make passenger trains obsolete.
In theory perhaps. But looking at how crypto currency is being used, who is dealing it, and for what reasons, then I wouldn’t call crypto currency an abstraction layer on barter by any stretch of the imagination. It could be. But today it is at best an abstraction layer on a casino, and at worst (in case of ICOs) an obfuscation layer on top of a scam.
Those new coins have the exact same valuation as Bitcoin: whatever any fool will pay for it. That happens to be a hell of a lot more for BTC than for catcoins, but plenty of new coins have attracted sufficient interest to be traded for and in significant amounts. If people think catcoins will appreciate in value, or think that it will attract enough suckers to drive up the price, then some of them will buy them in hopes of getting in at the ground floor of a rollercoaster ride.
You don’t need to create value to have a succesful coin, you only need to create the illusion of value. That’s why ICOs were invented: a bunch of smoke and mirrors to fool people into thinking they are buying something other than a worthless bit of data.
The EU takes a smarter approach: no block, but strict laws governing a posteriori censorship (because that's what the proposed anti hate speech laws amount to). Think social media are afraid of those laws? Think again. I think that there might be some unholy alliance brewing between governments and social media. The EU makes anti hate speech laws that are onerous, with harsh fines, but at the same time just a little bit vague. That gives social media the excuse they need to start censoring stuff that they themselves deem undesirable, "just to be on the safe side and not fall afoul of the law", thus avoiding the accusation of taking one side and silencing the other. The EU meanwhile will be pleased as punch as well to have that stuff disappearing from the public view, all without actually having to censor it. Those companies and governments know full well that their dislike of certain speech runs largely along the same lines.
To my surprise I am not missing that one as much as I thought I would. I picked up a pair of AirPods... now there’s something you’d expect of the good old Apple company, good looking, well built, practical, and of high quality. And they work equally well on my Windows laptop. Not going back to wires anytime soon, so they can keep the 3.5mm jack.
Slashdot Mirror
Nope. Not in any country I've been driving in at any rate. Pedestrians crossing a street where there's no traffic light or zebra crossing do NOT have right of way, though it stands to reason that this is no excuse to run them over. If a pedestrian tries to cross the street where he shouldn't and you narrowly avoid hitting him, no cop is going to give you a ticket since you have right of way. Do the same at a zebra crossing, and you get fined.
More likely, the owner will be responsible for taking out insurance, with the insurance companies setting premiums to cover what they figure the risk is. Auto makers might opt to cover the insurance costs for the owners to show faith in their product.
In normal countries, that means that victims, owners or insurers can sue the designers and manufacturers if gross negligence or deliberate underselling of the risks can be shown. In countries with sillier court systems like the US, it means that no matter what the circumstances, victims will be able to sue everyone else into oblivion.
That's as may be, but phrases like "socially optimal outcomes" still make me think of re-education camps.
The solution proposed by Bayer is to spread out diverting drivers to different routes. You'd think that happens automatically as the shortcuts fill up and the apps start routing around those blockages, but the problem is that the traffic data available to the apps tend to lag quite a bit. Drivers know this. And that's why that video of the simulation hasn't convinced me. When apps suggest a detour but the off-ramp to that detour is congested, people often elect not to take the detour even if the app tells them it's faster. And once the freeway starts moving again, I usually see that "residual congestion" at the off-ramp clear in seconds, no one chooses the detour anymore in that case and just drives on instead.
I'd think that Pinkertons and other corporate surveillance firms would only be deployed in case of a concrete suspicion, otherwise it'd be prohibitively expensive. Random searches are permissible in a lot of cases. In several European countries, that means this has to be specifically mentioned to in the employment contract, and the measure needs to be proportional to the risk. In case of most companies that would be limited to searching bags and suitcases, but in high risk / high value environments it can also include personal searches. Eavesdropping on personal communications is a big no-no however. Companies may ask that you leave your personal cellphone in a locker, but they can't listen in when you take it onto the premises.
BTW German staff councils appear to have to be informed on everything. I worked for a large multinational for a while; in our department having to "inform the german staff council" was considered a shit detail and it became something of a running joke trying to pass it on to the most junior staff member or the one absentee in the meeting. It's a pain but then again, at least they have privacy laws that are actually being looked after; the councils seem to take that responsibility very seriously.
I thought corporate taxes in the US were insanely high, compared to Europe for instance. Or is this a classic case of high taxes and numerous loopholes that are only available to a happy few megacorps?
I have to applaud the summary for calling it a ledger, because that’s what blockchain is, nothing magical or mysterious to it. Immutable? Even if it were, it still doesn’t matter. Not if you cannot ensure that the numbers entered into the ledger are actually correct. Voting requires a human chain of custody from ballot to results, with any human smart enough to count being able to oversee or verify the voting and counting process.
Instead they can look forward to feedback from the EU, in the form of another hefty fine for anti-competitive practises.
If you break the rules you should be punished. But this is not really punishing through clearly defined laws and due process with the right to appeal. This is doling out demerit points that are in themselves meaningless (thus not contestable), but now appear to add up to some serious consequences. The scary part is that the government is lumping in criminal behaviour, misdemeanors, and "socially undesirable" behaviour all in one points system, which basically means they get to tell you what being a virtuous person means, and get to enforce those rules.
Also, the punishment should fit the crime. Being banned from trains and planes is a fitting punishment for someone who repeatedly smokes on a non smoking train, or harasses the flight attendants. It is not appropriate for not paying your parking tickets.
Not at all the same business or scale, by the sound of it. Even so, aren't you sharing data with a lot more companies? For instance, if you collect monthly fees from customers by direct debit, you are sharing personal data with their banks.
Under the GDPR as well as the DPA (in the USA), the data controller (the entity collecting the data) remains responsible for what happens to the data. Data processors (3rd parties, in your example PayPal US) are very limited in what they can do with personal data they received from data controllers. Under the DPA for instance, they can only pass that data on to others (4th parties?) 1) with the data subject's explicit permission (not just given in ToS), or 2) under specific provisions set down in the law. For example: aggregated and de-anonimized data can sometimes be shared (with the caveat that de-anonymized data can often trivially be linked to a specific person, which is a separate issue)
How does the GDPR account for data shared with an entity in a country that has insufficient data protection laws? Keep in mind that the data controller is always responsible for what happens with the data, so if something gets shared along such a route, they get the fine.
A good many of these seem legit: companies to which PayPal has outsourced work, or partners such as banks, which all form an integral part of PayPal's actual operation. The shady ones are the companies listed under "marketing and communications". But all in all there aren't many shocking revelations in there. The sheer number seems high until you look at the list, and realise that this is what comes with running a global service.
What we see there in some cases that "shared data" also includes data collected by embedded crap from 3rd parties such as FaceBook (which pretty much every site has these days). "Advertising ID and device ID to segment user groups based on app behaviour, encrypted e-mail address associated with PayPal users (without indicating account relationship), IP Address, Anonymous ID generated by cookies, pixel tags or similar technologies embedded in webpages, ads and emails delivered to users. Mobile advertiser ID, IP Address and other metadata via Facebook SDK in mobile apps." Yeah, just about what we expected, and it's good that they actually include this sort of stuff on the list.
Here's an odd entry: Carrenza Limited (UK) | To hose a marketing database | Name, address, email address, business name, domain name, account status, account preferences, type and nature of the PayPal services offered or used, and relevant transaction information. I just wish that wasn't a typo...
If you need to build, use and scrap a truck just to fuel up that car, springing for a newer better model instead might be indeed the better course of action.
if the EU wants censorship, they should either censor the content themselves or block the sites they don't like
Both of these actions are likely to be met by very strong opposition from national governments, civil liberty activists as well as the general populace. So instead they make rules that place the burden on websites. Those rules are - by design, I suspect - onerous, strict, with heavy penalties and at the same time vague about where and when they apply. The result is that the larger sites, who can afford smart or manual filters, will apply censorship "voluntarily" in order to remain on the safe side of the law. Especially where it concerns content they themselves disagree with. The result is, as a clever MEP called it (might have been Reda), privatised censorship. With no oversight and no political accountability.
Also, a priori censorship is in violation of the constitution of several member countries.
It means I'm speaking in general terms, not specifically about Hawking. Especially since I'm not aware of what he had to say about AI.
Anyone should be able to contribute, but celebrity status forcing a disproportionate level of attention in a field someone is unfamiliar with can be extremely damaging
I do not want to speak ill of anyone (least of all the dead), but amen to that! And that goes for the "field" of politics as well.
There was a moving interview this morning with the chairman of the (Dutch) ALS foundation, about how Hawking served as an inspiration for them. In more ways than one he was an extraordinary human being.
If we're going to approach it from a cultural or ethnic point of view, I can guarantee you that we'll never arrive at a satisfactory solution. We could make like Noah and pick 2 of each, we'd either end up with a photo of a huge group of people, or some small rare ethnic groups will complain that they weren't included. Not to mention the handicapped, midgets, or same-sex couples. And who gets to stand in the center? Perhaps we could use a picture of the 4 major races, something like this little beaut'
I think something like the Voyager plaque is pretty good for the purpose, even though the people are a bit on the white side, and it's of course the Patriarchy that gets to say 'hi'. All stuff we can fix... as long as we don't end up sending the Greendale Human Being to represent us.
Riding the train is great. Changing trains, getting to the station or to your final destination: not so much, unless you're lucky. When I lived in the city, taking the train to work was pretty much a door-to-door journey. Now that I'm out in the sticks, I drive to work. We live close to a station but changing trains 2 times sucks and is a colossal time waster. Even on the worst of days, driving is much faster. Plus I can swing by the supermarket after work to pick up some stuff, that sort of thing, saving even more time.
Electric autonomous vehicles might well make passenger trains obsolete.
In theory perhaps. But looking at how crypto currency is being used, who is dealing it, and for what reasons, then I wouldn’t call crypto currency an abstraction layer on barter by any stretch of the imagination. It could be. But today it is at best an abstraction layer on a casino, and at worst (in case of ICOs) an obfuscation layer on top of a scam.
Those new coins have the exact same valuation as Bitcoin: whatever any fool will pay for it. That happens to be a hell of a lot more for BTC than for catcoins, but plenty of new coins have attracted sufficient interest to be traded for and in significant amounts. If people think catcoins will appreciate in value, or think that it will attract enough suckers to drive up the price, then some of them will buy them in hopes of getting in at the ground floor of a rollercoaster ride.
You don’t need to create value to have a succesful coin, you only need to create the illusion of value. That’s why ICOs were invented: a bunch of smoke and mirrors to fool people into thinking they are buying something other than a worthless bit of data.
The EU takes a smarter approach: no block, but strict laws governing a posteriori censorship (because that's what the proposed anti hate speech laws amount to). Think social media are afraid of those laws? Think again. I think that there might be some unholy alliance brewing between governments and social media. The EU makes anti hate speech laws that are onerous, with harsh fines, but at the same time just a little bit vague. That gives social media the excuse they need to start censoring stuff that they themselves deem undesirable, "just to be on the safe side and not fall afoul of the law", thus avoiding the accusation of taking one side and silencing the other. The EU meanwhile will be pleased as punch as well to have that stuff disappearing from the public view, all without actually having to censor it. Those companies and governments know full well that their dislike of certain speech runs largely along the same lines.
People (protesters, rioters, whatever) often mobilize and coordinate using Whatsapp groups. A lot easier than email or SMS.
To my surprise I am not missing that one as much as I thought I would. I picked up a pair of AirPods... now there’s something you’d expect of the good old Apple company, good looking, well built, practical, and of high quality. And they work equally well on my Windows laptop. Not going back to wires anytime soon, so they can keep the 3.5mm jack.