I'm sorry but as much as I respect Elon Musk and Tesla that is absolutely absurd. Tesla having a market cap bigger than Ford makes no rational sense even with the most optimistic possible growth expectations for Tesla.
I've been following Tesla in the news and here on Slashdot for a couple of years now, and I've seen one common thread:
Every time someone says Tesla is a bad investment(*), the stock jumps up almost immediately. It's almost as if the news media wants to periodically manipulate the stock for some benefit or another.
(*) By derating from "hold" to "sell", setting a lower price point, writing a "doom and gloom" article ("just look at this chart!!!"), and by telling everyone how Elon Musk isn't all that great.
Holly shit, somebody *asked* 4Combinator to get rid of Peter Thiel? That is like Kristallnacht #2! It's lucky we have such erudites as Tim Allen (former star of "Home Improvement," a 90s sitcom) to keep us vigilant.
I was being generous. To the left.
One of Y-Combinator's partners cut ties because of Thiel. Not mentioned in the quote below, is that they "asked" Y-Combinator to let him go, else they would cut ties.
On Monday, Project Include, an organization aimed at increasing diversity in Silicon Valley, said it was cutting ties with Y Combinator because of its continued connection to Thiel.
"Thiel's actions are in direct conflict with our values at Project Include," read a post from Ellen Pao, who cofounded Project Include. "Giving more power to someone whose ascension and behavior strike fear into so many people is unacceptable. His attacks on black, Mexican, Asian, Muslim and Jewish people, on women, and on others are more than just political speech; fueled by hate and encouraging violence, they make each of us feel unsafe."
Those people on the Left, the ones who voted Democrat and riot when a conservative speaker is on campus - you're the people who keep pointing out similarities between Trump and Nazi Germany.
I've heard stories about how businessmen staying in Chinese hotels leave their laptops in the room while going out, and the "maid" comes in, sticks in a USB drive, and downloads all the files.
I've often wondered if it's possible to make a spring-loaded trap that would clamp down on a USB device and prevent it from being removed. The USB connector has 2 square holes that square pegs might fit into.
It might be possible to "fish" for these foreign USB devices, and reverse engineer them to see what sorts of attack they use.
In Silicon Valley you're free to espouse your political views...just so long as they are the same ones that everybody else has, otherwise you'll get lynch mobbed.
Tim Allen commented that living in Hollywood is like being in 30's Germany.
“You know, you get beat up if you don’t believe what everybody believes,” [...] “This is like ’30s Germany.”
It seems like you can't publicly state an opinion without getting fired by your company, or having a mob ask your company to let you go, or having the mob ask your company to stop selling your products, or... pretty much anything to hurt, disable, and incapacitate anyone who disagrees with the groupthink. During the election, 4Combinator was asked by one of their customers to get rid of Peter Thiel, due to his support for Trump.
One would *expect* political donations to be publicly recorded to prevent conflict of interest and such, but if making a donation would get you publicly outed and shamed, hurt, or threatened, it seems like this is become political extortion by violence.
Did conservatives do all that when Obama was elected?
The only reason anyone made it through the GFC was because Obama (which inherited the mess) fired up the money presses and kept liquidity in the economy. If not for that it could have been decades long, the only thing that fixed the great depression in the 30s ultimately was WW2.. because ta-da the government starts spending up by building lots of stuff, thus putting liquidity into the economy.
Australia is not special, its just been riding an almost never ending mining boom with China.
Quick question for you.
1) The US pretty-much doubled federal spending in order to get us out of the depression, putting us now $20 trillion in debt.
2) Depressions seem to come roughly every 8 or 9 years. Call it every 10 years.
3) When the next depression hits, will the US have had enough time to pay back the extra debt?
4) Are steps 1-3, a sustainable plan for shortening recessions going forward?
Extra credit:
According to your post, the US helped *everyone* through the depression. Was the extra debt borne by everyone, or only the US? Will foreign citizens help us pay back the money we spent to help them through, or only US citizens?
Was the extra money spent on things that would make our economy stronger, such as infrastructure, high-speed internet access, health care, or research? Or was it spent to expand the military (as in: number of aircraft carriers)?
Spending all that money, is the economy sound or are we just limping along? Are we back to the pre-depression unemployment levels and wage levels?
Would it have been better to simply let the banks fail, so that the depression was worse but much shorter? Did any other countries do this, and what were their results?
I think you're missing a key point here: The CIA threat *is* the Russia threat.
Consider the balance of evidence: Putin says the Clinton leaks did not come from Russia, Julian said specifically that he knew where the Clinton leaks came from and that it wasn't Russia, the US evidence that the Clinton leaks came from Russia can be summed up as "it's something they would do".
And now we find out that the CIA can leak whatever they want and make it *look* like it came from Russia.
Also, they are one of the government agencies who claims that the leaks came from Russia.
Now, I don't have any evidence that the CIA is leaking things and making it appear as if Russia did it, but this has to make us question whether we can trust *any* government pronouncement of where some leak or another came from.
All this "the Russians did it!" can now be completely ignored as an ad-hominem attempt to lead attention away from the actual data that was leaked.
We don't know *who* leaked it, because for all we know it was our own security agency.
(And need I point out that GCHQ, Russian intelligence, and a host of other players could probably do the same thing.)
What a lot of people don't seem to get is that if a substantial fraction of labor gets displaced, market forces will tend to devalue *all* labor.
Yes, maybe *my* job is safe, but my pay doesn't have to stay high.
To be fair, Jeff Immelt is simply speaking from one of the basic fallacies. He probably learned it at management school, and hasn't spent even a moment in critical thought about it.
Specifically, modern economics assumes infinite consumption which implies infinite need for work. "Infinite consumption" comes from either the Malthus'ian idea that human population will grow exponentially until resources run out, or the idea of "always wanting more", as in bigger house, more cars, more land, more toys, etc.
Personal consumption has limits, and industrialized nation population *doesn't* grow without bounds, and productivity keeps going up, and you start to realize that the job pool is finite, and any reduction in jobs puts stress on the people who need to find jobs to live.
The US is at about $50,000 per person in production, and that's a huge amount. Note that this is per person, and not per working person. We have enough wealth in this country to let everyone live comfortably with only half our workforce - and productivity keeps going up.
It's a fallacy of modern economics, it's unsustainable (labor versus shrinking job market) and something has to give eventually.
Whether we transition to a different system that lets people enjoy our production, or whether civilization crashes and burns, depends on people like Jeff Immelt.
Specifically, whether Jeff Immelt, and other like him, can unlearn modern economics and help transition us to a different model.
Julian's a Russian asset. He might've had the best intentions at some point, but it's very difficult to realize them while staring down the barrel of a figurative or literal gun. His omissions, timing, and deeply misleading editorialism are equally as powerful as printing blatant falsehoods.
And by that you mean that his release isn't authentic?
Or maybe that it isn't important? Or interesting? Or valuable to society?
And I have to wonder, just how is it that you know his intentions? Or that he's a Russian asset?
You mention "printing blatant falsehoods". Do you have references, sources, rationalization, or... in fact... *anything* to support what you just said?
Someone always tries to direct the conversation away from the issues and to the person making the claim.
Does this work on Slashdot? Can we get everyone talking about the merits of Julian Assange at the top of the discussion, pushing any real debate down "below the fold" so fewer people see it?
UK is losing free access to a market 6x their domestic, and won't be the financial market for Europe. Hard to see how that won't result in a slowed economy and they'll certainly have less political influence as they can no longer affect EU policies.
UK is also losing access to a workforce 6x their domestic, willing to move and work for much less than UK natives.
Wake up! "The economy" has to account for the general welfare of the people, it's more than just the total revenues of the businesses,
Also, if the UK ever needed an emergency tactic to prevent economic collapse, they can let their currency float.
Greece, a member of the EU, was not allowed to do that (even though it would have helped them).
Scientists do science (hypothesis, theory, test, publish repeat). Engineers apply science and business.
That's the old fashioned way.
The new way is:
1) Do a study with lots of measurements 2) Crunch the numbers looking for an interesting trend 3) Create a plausible explanation for the trend 4) Publish!
A. Call the fire department? B. Accuse the neighbor of telling you your house is on fire that "Fire is just somebody's religion!" C. Convene a study to determine if the house really is on fire, and if so, if it was due to spontaneous combustion or if there's a arsonist about? D. "Blame Liberals!" E. Post to Facebook or instagram?
F. Call the police to report a drunk/delusional hippie running around the neighbourhood who thinks the houses are on fire?
As the climate is always changing, and Mr. Hockey Stick says it's man doing it. how much is man doing it and how did he prove that? If climate change is accelerating because of what man is doing, how much acceleration can they account for? In what way did they come up with their numbers? Rather than telling me all about the end of days, tell me about real science and hard numbers please.
This is an interesting question that a lot of the evangelists don't know. In interviews and debates, it's a good question to ask.
The answer is: about 1/3 of the noted increase in temperature is directly due to humans, about 1/3 is the result of natural variation, and 1/3 is unaccounted for.
Of course this is a statistical measure, sort of like trying to determine whether throwing 4 heads in a row was a fluke or an indication of a trend, but it's the best answer we have with our current understanding and datasets.
It's interesting to point out the differences between science and, for example, religion.
How does religion typically deal with sceptics and dissenters? Usually with scorn, derision, excommunication, and occasionally death. In the bible it says "shall not suffer a witch to live", and so on.
Science is the complete opposite of religion. Scientists would never ostracise, belittle, or spew hatred on sceptics, would never blackball, blackmail, or threaten other scientists, would never cause them to lose income or hold an undergraduates' opinions hostage as a condition for getting a degree.
So when you read that 97% of scientists believe in global warming, you can tell that they come to that opinion honestly, and without coercion from other scientists.
Trump was adamant that there should be a vote yesterday, presumably because it was the ACA's anniversary.
And few people have noticed that Trump masterfully defeated Ryan, put all the blame for the failed attempt on Ryan and the GOP, and is letting the fuse burn down to the Obamacare implosion.
No matter what happens, it's a win for Trump. He is manipulating the system, just like he did during the campaign.
We're stuck with Obamacare for the next year or two, let's see how well that plays in the 2018 elections.
This is a very interesting development, and use of the bitcoin/blockchain technology.
Hypothetically, it's difficult to collect works of art in media forms that are easy to copy. For example, it'd be hard to have a 500 print "limited edition, collectible" screensaver image.
But an artist could mint their own cryptocoin sell one with each registered copy of their work. The person who "owns" the official copy would keep the bitcoin safe, and be assured that only 500 of the limited edition versions were ever made. (Along with some security from the artist, publishing their crypto signature for provenance verification, and so on).
This wouldn't prevent people from copying or using the screensavers, but it could make certain forms collectible. This would eliminate counterfeiting in those forms.
Bitcoin as a financial system is made impractical in the long term by the fact that it is limited in the total number that can be issued. After the last one is issued, the intent is for the value of them to simply go up.
A Bitcoin is the solution to a hashing problem for which the ease in calculating a solution goes up with the size of the search space. In a very large search space it's easy to generate a solution, but as the search space becomes smaller you have to spend more time hunting around for a correct solution.
As more solutions are found, the people behind bitcoin validate that 'coin and then shorten the length in bits needed for a valid solution. They have a fixed number in mind that they want to base the currency on, and as the number of solutions found approach that number, they have been shortening the length so that they will eventually have exactly the number they want, and finding new solutions will take an astronomically long time.
There's nothing preventing them from increasing the valid length of solutions and letting people find more. They have explained countless times that this is how they can have actual inflation in their currency.
Countless times of explaining this to the public, and yet people continue to repeat bullshit they've heard "somewhere on the internet" that matches their woldview.
It's no wonder they're having trouble - they're concentrating on their project, but losing the war against propaganda.
As much as I'm a fan of law and order, clamping down on sex trafficking is way down on my priority list.
By and large - not all cases, certainly, but mostly - it's adults making consensual decisions about their own bodies.
That the article explicitly mentions an "underage girl" is an appeal to emotion by highlighting a specific case. This alone implies that there is *no* scientific evidence that cracking down on sex trafficking is useful or even cost effective. If there was (scientific evidence), the article would lead with it and it would be highly cited. The fact that the article is written with such an appeal implies that the scientific evidence is *against* legal enforcement, saying in effect "we know it's ineffective and harmful, but we want you to support it anyway. Think of the children!"
How unusual is this specific case? Would the law enforcement resources be better spent in education rather than enforcement? Is this effort easily made useless (by photographing against a sheet, for instance)?
We don't actually regulate sex trafficking very well, perhaps not at all. It only serves as a wedge that the police can use against the citizens. In the places where it's been legalized (Nevada), the criminal and health disadvantages have been eliminated - and if that situation would hold across the country, it implies that there is no sociological reason to criminalize that behaviour.
As a country, we waste a lot of time, effort, and money on useless endeavours, trying to regulate sex trafficking is one of these.
I have no interest in helping the police with any of them, especially if it's based on an emotional appeal without strong scientific reasoning.
Just like Dick Cheney, we'll never be free from assholes like Peter Thiel.
Quick question: what makes Peter Thiel an asshole?
AFAICT, the only controversial thing he's done is come out in favour of Trump.
He's not personally known as an asshole (as Mark Zuckerberg), he doesn't do a lot of sketchy things with his charitable foundation (like Bill and Hillary Clinton), he doesn't finance riots and protests here in the US (like George Soros), and he certainly hasn't led us into war under false pretences or authorized torture like Dick Chaney has.
I'm just wondering... what makes him comparable to Dick Cheney?
It's the Trump thing, isn't it?
You're complaining about his support of Trump, right?
Disappointed? Why? Either way I win, as Okian Warrior validates the disdain by failing to correct their error, or they do what I wanted and improve their own conduct.
"At 12:04:03, every screen in the building strobed for eighteen seconds in a frequency that produced seizures in a susceptible segment of Sense/Net employees."
I think you've got the wrong novel.
In Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron", everyone was required to be "equal" in all ways. People who were smarter than average were required to wear headphones with distracting noises, people who were stronger or faster than average were required to wear extra weights or confining clothing, and so on.
We've just had a case where a couple of deaf people got 20,000 videos taken offline because the videos were not closed captioned for the deaf.
Now we've got a legal precedent which means that no one will be able to send a specially crafted image because it hurt a special-needs person.
Once this legal precedent is extended, can it be extended to other areas of harm? Would the same legal theory apply if:
1) The text content triggers someone into vividly reliving a past assault or rape? 2) The video of a war encounter triggers someone's PTSD? 3) The sudden audio content startles someone into spilling acetone or MEC or coffee in their lap? 4) Some religious person finds the imagery insulting to their religion?
I'm not against people with special needs, but this thing about "everyone must abide by the lowest denominator" is utter crap.
I once knew an epileptic who would get seizures by looking at a checkerboard floor pattern. I was throwing a party, had built some games in the basement, and she asked before coming what type of flooring was used in the games.
Must we to ban checkerboard patterns on the entire internet because of this one person?
Kurt Eichenwald is obviously a person with special needs, and that's fine, but he should deal with his special needs at his end, rather than forcing everyone to conform to his needs. His computer should be set to not flash animated gifs, to require a keypress to go to the next frame. He needs installed software that overlays a neutral diffuse background on online web pages and images.
The deaf people who wanted access to the online courses should also deal with their special needs at their end, by arranging to get captioning(*) for the courses they actually want to take, instead of making the university take down 20,000 course videos.
If this lawsuit has any merit, we're bound to see a serious erosion of the immense value we've built up in this internet thing.
Eventually we'll all be in the "Harrison Bergerac" world.
(*) And how they do that, by government assistance for the handicapped, or automated captioning, or perhaps by requiring the university do it in specific instances on request, is a separate issue. The point is that the changes happen at the special-needs endpoint, and not the entire rest of the internet.
I think you mean arguing against facts, because that's all that xkcd comic was. Which sounds exactly like something an anonymous coward would do.
As much as people like to insult and deride the other side, there are valid concerns there. The concerns are so large and looming that the "correct" side has lost a lot of credibility. I think a lot of the public is noticing the elephant in the room, and this is giving the deniers leverage in the minds of the people.
Rather than continue to insult and deride, perhaps it's time to address the credibility gaps.
Point 1: Scott Adams pointed out that when asked the question "how much of global warming is caused by humans, and how much is natural" in debates and televised interviews, no scientist had an answer. Specifically, Bill Nye, who is the global warming champion, didn't have an answer to that question.
Point 2: Another Scott Adams observation is about the models. Why is there more than 1 model? Shouldn't scientists agree on the best model and just use it? Shouldn't scientists agree on the best *data* and just use it?
Point 3: Also from Scott Adams is the observation that NO other complex model has ever had predictive value, and why should we believe that this one does?
Point4: From my view, climate change is closely tied with the actions that "we must do to save ourselves!", and those actions are always a) part of the liberal agenda, b) involve reducing our standard of living, and c) negatively impact most people while further lining the pockets of the rich and powerful.
Nowhere do we see proposals that make more electricity available to more people, nowhere does anyone point out that 85% of all resources are used by industry (therefore reducing home electricity consumption is less effective), no one proposes solutions for a decentralized grid, or reducing consumption by giving everyone fast internet access (doing things online generally uses much fewer resources than in person), or changing tax rules to promote telecommuting, or any of a hundred other easy changes that would make our lives better while being more efficient. It's always about enduring more hardship.
Point5: From my view, the "correct side" has lost a lot of credibility simply by their actions over the last 3 months.
If "that side" will riot over the outcome of a fair election, headline unsubstantiated lies, leak secret information for political assassination, call for literal assassination, how is it that they have any credibility over other issues?
Leonardo DiCaprio flies an eyebrow artist 7,000 miles to do his eyebrows, and we're supposed to believe him about global warming?
It's not that I don't believe in the science behind global warming, I do.
I just don't believe in the politics of global warming, that's all.
This idiot is one of the people that has made the internet so unpleasant.
One of the perennial problems with on Slashdot is that arguments can simply attack the person making them.
The greeks noted that arguments are made from "logos", "ethos", and "pathos". "Logos" is the logical basis of your argument, "Pathos" is the emotional appeal of your argument, and "Ethos" is the character of the person making the argument.
Thus, here on slashdot we can't discuss constitutional abuse of Kim Dotcom because he's an asshole, we can't discuss wikileaks because Assange is an attention whore, and we can't discuss CIA snooping because Snowden is a traitor.
It's so easy to dismiss an argument out of hand just by pointing out that the person making an argument is somehow inferior.
Nick Denton is such a completely rotten individual that this is not a valid issue that nerds should discuss or post views and opinions about.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry but as much as I respect Elon Musk and Tesla that is absolutely absurd. Tesla having a market cap bigger than Ford makes no rational sense even with the most optimistic possible growth expectations for Tesla.
I've been following Tesla in the news and here on Slashdot for a couple of years now, and I've seen one common thread:
Every time someone says Tesla is a bad investment(*), the stock jumps up almost immediately. It's almost as if the news media wants to periodically manipulate the stock for some benefit or another.
(*) By derating from "hold" to "sell", setting a lower price point, writing a "doom and gloom" article ("just look at this chart!!!"), and by telling everyone how Elon Musk isn't all that great.
Holly shit, somebody *asked* 4Combinator to get rid of Peter Thiel? That is like Kristallnacht #2! It's lucky we have such erudites as Tim Allen (former star of "Home Improvement," a 90s sitcom) to keep us vigilant.
I was being generous. To the left.
One of Y-Combinator's partners cut ties because of Thiel. Not mentioned in the quote below, is that they "asked" Y-Combinator to let him go, else they would cut ties.
On Monday, Project Include, an organization aimed at increasing diversity in Silicon Valley, said it was cutting ties with Y Combinator because of its continued connection to Thiel.
"Thiel's actions are in direct conflict with our values at Project Include," read a post from Ellen Pao, who cofounded Project Include. "Giving more power to someone whose ascension and behavior strike fear into so many people is unacceptable. His attacks on black, Mexican, Asian, Muslim and Jewish people, on women, and on others are more than just political speech; fueled by hate and encouraging violence, they make each of us feel unsafe."
Those people on the Left, the ones who voted Democrat and riot when a conservative speaker is on campus - you're the people who keep pointing out similarities between Trump and Nazi Germany.
You don't see the similarities?
I've heard stories about how businessmen staying in Chinese hotels leave their laptops in the room while going out, and the "maid" comes in, sticks in a USB drive, and downloads all the files.
I've often wondered if it's possible to make a spring-loaded trap that would clamp down on a USB device and prevent it from being removed. The USB connector has 2 square holes that square pegs might fit into.
It might be possible to "fish" for these foreign USB devices, and reverse engineer them to see what sorts of attack they use.
In Silicon Valley you're free to espouse your political views...just so long as they are the same ones that everybody else has, otherwise you'll get lynch mobbed.
Tim Allen commented that living in Hollywood is like being in 30's Germany.
“You know, you get beat up if you don’t believe what everybody believes,” [...] “This is like ’30s Germany.”
It seems like you can't publicly state an opinion without getting fired by your company, or having a mob ask your company to let you go, or having the mob ask your company to stop selling your products, or... pretty much anything to hurt, disable, and incapacitate anyone who disagrees with the groupthink. During the election, 4Combinator was asked by one of their customers to get rid of Peter Thiel, due to his support for Trump.
One would *expect* political donations to be publicly recorded to prevent conflict of interest and such, but if making a donation would get you publicly outed and shamed, hurt, or threatened, it seems like this is become political extortion by violence.
Did conservatives do all that when Obama was elected?
LOL.
The only reason anyone made it through the GFC was because Obama (which inherited the mess) fired up the money presses and kept liquidity in the economy. If not for that it could have been decades long, the only thing that fixed the great depression in the 30s ultimately was WW2.. because ta-da the government starts spending up by building lots of stuff, thus putting liquidity into the economy.
Australia is not special, its just been riding an almost never ending mining boom with China.
Quick question for you.
1) The US pretty-much doubled federal spending in order to get us out of the depression, putting us now $20 trillion in debt.
2) Depressions seem to come roughly every 8 or 9 years. Call it every 10 years.
3) When the next depression hits, will the US have had enough time to pay back the extra debt?
4) Are steps 1-3, a sustainable plan for shortening recessions going forward?
Extra credit:
According to your post, the US helped *everyone* through the depression. Was the extra debt borne by everyone, or only the US? Will foreign citizens help us pay back the money we spent to help them through, or only US citizens?
Was the extra money spent on things that would make our economy stronger, such as infrastructure, high-speed internet access, health care, or research? Or was it spent to expand the military (as in: number of aircraft carriers)?
Spending all that money, is the economy sound or are we just limping along? Are we back to the pre-depression unemployment levels and wage levels?
Would it have been better to simply let the banks fail, so that the depression was worse but much shorter? Did any other countries do this, and what were their results?
The CIA is a bigger threat to us than Russia is.
I think you're missing a key point here: The CIA threat *is* the Russia threat.
Consider the balance of evidence: Putin says the Clinton leaks did not come from Russia, Julian said specifically that he knew where the Clinton leaks came from and that it wasn't Russia, the US evidence that the Clinton leaks came from Russia can be summed up as "it's something they would do".
And now we find out that the CIA can leak whatever they want and make it *look* like it came from Russia.
Also, they are one of the government agencies who claims that the leaks came from Russia.
Now, I don't have any evidence that the CIA is leaking things and making it appear as if Russia did it, but this has to make us question whether we can trust *any* government pronouncement of where some leak or another came from.
All this "the Russians did it!" can now be completely ignored as an ad-hominem attempt to lead attention away from the actual data that was leaked.
We don't know *who* leaked it, because for all we know it was our own security agency.
(And need I point out that GCHQ, Russian intelligence, and a host of other players could probably do the same thing.)
What a lot of people don't seem to get is that if a substantial fraction of labor gets displaced, market forces will tend to devalue *all* labor.
Yes, maybe *my* job is safe, but my pay doesn't have to stay high.
To be fair, Jeff Immelt is simply speaking from one of the basic fallacies. He probably learned it at management school, and hasn't spent even a moment in critical thought about it.
Specifically, modern economics assumes infinite consumption which implies infinite need for work. "Infinite consumption" comes from either the Malthus'ian idea that human population will grow exponentially until resources run out, or the idea of "always wanting more", as in bigger house, more cars, more land, more toys, etc.
Personal consumption has limits, and industrialized nation population *doesn't* grow without bounds, and productivity keeps going up, and you start to realize that the job pool is finite, and any reduction in jobs puts stress on the people who need to find jobs to live.
The US is at about $50,000 per person in production, and that's a huge amount. Note that this is per person, and not per working person. We have enough wealth in this country to let everyone live comfortably with only half our workforce - and productivity keeps going up.
It's a fallacy of modern economics, it's unsustainable (labor versus shrinking job market) and something has to give eventually.
Whether we transition to a different system that lets people enjoy our production, or whether civilization crashes and burns, depends on people like Jeff Immelt.
Specifically, whether Jeff Immelt, and other like him, can unlearn modern economics and help transition us to a different model.
Julian's a Russian asset. He might've had the best intentions at some point, but it's very difficult to realize them while staring down the barrel of a figurative or literal gun. His omissions, timing, and deeply misleading editorialism are equally as powerful as printing blatant falsehoods.
And by that you mean that his release isn't authentic?
Or maybe that it isn't important? Or interesting? Or valuable to society?
And I have to wonder, just how is it that you know his intentions? Or that he's a Russian asset?
You mention "printing blatant falsehoods". Do you have references, sources, rationalization, or... in fact... *anything* to support what you just said?
Someone always tries to direct the conversation away from the issues and to the person making the claim.
Does this work on Slashdot? Can we get everyone talking about the merits of Julian Assange at the top of the discussion, pushing any real debate down "below the fold" so fewer people see it?
Just because a company CAN sell something does not mean they will.
I think it will be pretty interesting to see what they can actually end up buying.
One thing that got lost in all the wailing and moaning is that protecting privacy is the purview of the FTC, not the FCC.
The law got axed because it was a standout overreach of a specific government agency, only affected a certain segment, and was done badly.
What *should* have happened is the FTC should pass a low saying that *every* corporation has to protect customer privacy.
Everyone got so distracted with "muh rites!" and completely lost track of whether it was a good law or not.
UK is losing free access to a market 6x their domestic, and won't be the financial market for Europe. Hard to see how that won't result in a slowed economy and they'll certainly have less political influence as they can no longer affect EU policies.
UK is also losing access to a workforce 6x their domestic, willing to move and work for much less than UK natives.
Wake up! "The economy" has to account for the general welfare of the people, it's more than just the total revenues of the businesses,
Also, if the UK ever needed an emergency tactic to prevent economic collapse, they can let their currency float.
Greece, a member of the EU, was not allowed to do that (even though it would have helped them).
Scientists do science (hypothesis, theory, test, publish repeat). Engineers apply science and business.
That's the old fashioned way.
The new way is:
1) Do a study with lots of measurements
2) Crunch the numbers looking for an interesting trend
3) Create a plausible explanation for the trend
4) Publish!
Your house is on fire. Do you:
A. Call the fire department?
B. Accuse the neighbor of telling you your house is on fire that "Fire is just somebody's religion!"
C. Convene a study to determine if the house really is on fire, and if so, if it was due to spontaneous combustion or if there's a arsonist about?
D. "Blame Liberals!"
E. Post to Facebook or instagram?
F. Call the police to report a drunk/delusional hippie running around the neighbourhood who thinks the houses are on fire?
As the climate is always changing, and Mr. Hockey Stick says it's man doing it. how much is man doing it and how did he prove that?
If climate change is accelerating because of what man is doing, how much acceleration can they account for? In what way did they come up with their numbers?
Rather than telling me all about the end of days, tell me about real science and hard numbers please.
This is an interesting question that a lot of the evangelists don't know. In interviews and debates, it's a good question to ask.
The answer is: about 1/3 of the noted increase in temperature is directly due to humans, about 1/3 is the result of natural variation, and 1/3 is unaccounted for.
Of course this is a statistical measure, sort of like trying to determine whether throwing 4 heads in a row was a fluke or an indication of a trend, but it's the best answer we have with our current understanding and datasets.
It's interesting to point out the differences between science and, for example, religion.
How does religion typically deal with sceptics and dissenters? Usually with scorn, derision, excommunication, and occasionally death. In the bible it says "shall not suffer a witch to live", and so on.
Science is the complete opposite of religion. Scientists would never ostracise, belittle, or spew hatred on sceptics, would never blackball, blackmail, or threaten other scientists, would never cause them to lose income or hold an undergraduates' opinions hostage as a condition for getting a degree.
So when you read that 97% of scientists believe in global warming, you can tell that they come to that opinion honestly, and without coercion from other scientists.
Science is completely unlike religion.
Trump was adamant that there should be a vote yesterday, presumably because it was the ACA's anniversary.
And few people have noticed that Trump masterfully defeated Ryan, put all the blame for the failed attempt on Ryan and the GOP, and is letting the fuse burn down to the Obamacare implosion.
No matter what happens, it's a win for Trump. He is manipulating the system, just like he did during the campaign.
We're stuck with Obamacare for the next year or two, let's see how well that plays in the 2018 elections.
See also: creationism. vaccines cause autism. chemtrails. lizards control whitehouse. smoking is good for you.
wake up sheeple!
So your argument is: "because some other people believe crazy things, your position is crazy".
That's your argument against climate change sceptics. Right?
I've read a lot from people who have theories of how the universe works, or how to make a free energy system, or how to make anti gravity.
Occasionally a physicist (or chemist, or whatever) will point out a logical flaw in that person's theory, and ask them to explain the inconsistency.
You can probably imagine what their response is.
I just want to be clear on where you're coming from.
We can point out potential flaws in the measurements, theory, prediction models(*), and political actions, and ask for an explanation.
And your response is "because some other people believe crazy things, your position is crazy".
That's what you're saying. Right?
(*) A good potential flaw: Why is there more than one predictive model for climate? Shouldn't there be only one model that everyone uses?
This is a very interesting development, and use of the bitcoin/blockchain technology.
Hypothetically, it's difficult to collect works of art in media forms that are easy to copy. For example, it'd be hard to have a 500 print "limited edition, collectible" screensaver image.
But an artist could mint their own cryptocoin sell one with each registered copy of their work. The person who "owns" the official copy would keep the bitcoin safe, and be assured that only 500 of the limited edition versions were ever made. (Along with some security from the artist, publishing their crypto signature for provenance verification, and so on).
This wouldn't prevent people from copying or using the screensavers, but it could make certain forms collectible. This would eliminate counterfeiting in those forms.
The trading cards are just one example of this.
Concur.
Bitcoin as a financial system is made impractical in the long term by the fact that it is limited in the total number that can be issued. After the last one is issued, the intent is for the value of them to simply go up.
A Bitcoin is the solution to a hashing problem for which the ease in calculating a solution goes up with the size of the search space. In a very large search space it's easy to generate a solution, but as the search space becomes smaller you have to spend more time hunting around for a correct solution.
As more solutions are found, the people behind bitcoin validate that 'coin and then shorten the length in bits needed for a valid solution. They have a fixed number in mind that they want to base the currency on, and as the number of solutions found approach that number, they have been shortening the length so that they will eventually have exactly the number they want, and finding new solutions will take an astronomically long time.
There's nothing preventing them from increasing the valid length of solutions and letting people find more. They have explained countless times that this is how they can have actual inflation in their currency.
Countless times of explaining this to the public, and yet people continue to repeat bullshit they've heard "somewhere on the internet" that matches their woldview.
It's no wonder they're having trouble - they're concentrating on their project, but losing the war against propaganda.
As much as I'm a fan of law and order, clamping down on sex trafficking is way down on my priority list.
By and large - not all cases, certainly, but mostly - it's adults making consensual decisions about their own bodies.
That the article explicitly mentions an "underage girl" is an appeal to emotion by highlighting a specific case. This alone implies that there is *no* scientific evidence that cracking down on sex trafficking is useful or even cost effective. If there was (scientific evidence), the article would lead with it and it would be highly cited. The fact that the article is written with such an appeal implies that the scientific evidence is *against* legal enforcement, saying in effect "we know it's ineffective and harmful, but we want you to support it anyway. Think of the children!"
How unusual is this specific case? Would the law enforcement resources be better spent in education rather than enforcement? Is this effort easily made useless (by photographing against a sheet, for instance)?
We don't actually regulate sex trafficking very well, perhaps not at all. It only serves as a wedge that the police can use against the citizens. In the places where it's been legalized (Nevada), the criminal and health disadvantages have been eliminated - and if that situation would hold across the country, it implies that there is no sociological reason to criminalize that behaviour.
As a country, we waste a lot of time, effort, and money on useless endeavours, trying to regulate sex trafficking is one of these.
I have no interest in helping the police with any of them, especially if it's based on an emotional appeal without strong scientific reasoning.
Just like Dick Cheney, we'll never be free from assholes like Peter Thiel.
Quick question: what makes Peter Thiel an asshole?
AFAICT, the only controversial thing he's done is come out in favour of Trump.
He's not personally known as an asshole (as Mark Zuckerberg), he doesn't do a lot of sketchy things with his charitable foundation (like Bill and Hillary Clinton), he doesn't finance riots and protests here in the US (like George Soros), and he certainly hasn't led us into war under false pretences or authorized torture like Dick Chaney has.
I'm just wondering... what makes him comparable to Dick Cheney?
It's the Trump thing, isn't it?
You're complaining about his support of Trump, right?
Disappointed? Why? Either way I win, as Okian Warrior validates the disdain by failing to correct their error, or they do what I wanted and improve their own conduct.
I don't play to lose.
You always win.
You know that, right?
"At 12:04:03, every screen in the building strobed for eighteen seconds in a frequency that produced seizures in a susceptible segment of Sense/Net employees."
I think you've got the wrong novel.
In Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron", everyone was required to be "equal" in all ways. People who were smarter than average were required to wear headphones with distracting noises, people who were stronger or faster than average were required to wear extra weights or confining clothing, and so on.
We've just had a case where a couple of deaf people got 20,000 videos taken offline because the videos were not closed captioned for the deaf.
Now we've got a legal precedent which means that no one will be able to send a specially crafted image because it hurt a special-needs person.
Once this legal precedent is extended, can it be extended to other areas of harm? Would the same legal theory apply if:
1) The text content triggers someone into vividly reliving a past assault or rape?
2) The video of a war encounter triggers someone's PTSD?
3) The sudden audio content startles someone into spilling acetone or MEC or coffee in their lap?
4) Some religious person finds the imagery insulting to their religion?
I'm not against people with special needs, but this thing about "everyone must abide by the lowest denominator" is utter crap.
I once knew an epileptic who would get seizures by looking at a checkerboard floor pattern. I was throwing a party, had built some games in the basement, and she asked before coming what type of flooring was used in the games.
Must we to ban checkerboard patterns on the entire internet because of this one person?
Kurt Eichenwald is obviously a person with special needs, and that's fine, but he should deal with his special needs at his end, rather than forcing everyone to conform to his needs. His computer should be set to not flash animated gifs, to require a keypress to go to the next frame. He needs installed software that overlays a neutral diffuse background on online web pages and images.
The deaf people who wanted access to the online courses should also deal with their special needs at their end, by arranging to get captioning(*) for the courses they actually want to take, instead of making the university take down 20,000 course videos.
If this lawsuit has any merit, we're bound to see a serious erosion of the immense value we've built up in this internet thing.
Eventually we'll all be in the "Harrison Bergerac" world.
(*) And how they do that, by government assistance for the handicapped, or automated captioning, or perhaps by requiring the university do it in specific instances on request, is a separate issue. The point is that the changes happen at the special-needs endpoint, and not the entire rest of the internet.
Fucking Trump, trying to bring back manufacturing when he doesn't understand the concept of "robot".
Perhaps, but I'm pretty sure he understands the concept of unemployment.
In your opinion, is supercomputing more important than bringing back jobs?
What's your stance on H1B then?
NOW you perceive the film industry has run out of ideas? In 2017?
Well, let's see here.
They started making a movies of video games, such as "Doom", which had very thin plots.
Then they started making movies of video games that had no discernable plot, such as "PacMan".
Then they started making movies of *board* games, such as "Battleship".
(Monopoly (the movie) is apparently in production.)
Battleship? Really?
I'm sure the studios still have a lot of ground to cover. I anxiously look forward to "solitaire, the movie" in the next year or two.
I think you mean arguing against facts, because that's all that xkcd comic was. Which sounds exactly like something an anonymous coward would do.
As much as people like to insult and deride the other side, there are valid concerns there. The concerns are so large and looming that the "correct" side has lost a lot of credibility. I think a lot of the public is noticing the elephant in the room, and this is giving the deniers leverage in the minds of the people.
Rather than continue to insult and deride, perhaps it's time to address the credibility gaps.
Point 1: Scott Adams pointed out that when asked the question "how much of global warming is caused by humans, and how much is natural" in debates and televised interviews, no scientist had an answer. Specifically, Bill Nye, who is the global warming champion, didn't have an answer to that question.
Point 2: Another Scott Adams observation is about the models. Why is there more than 1 model? Shouldn't scientists agree on the best model and just use it? Shouldn't scientists agree on the best *data* and just use it?
Point 3: Also from Scott Adams is the observation that NO other complex model has ever had predictive value, and why should we believe that this one does?
Point4: From my view, climate change is closely tied with the actions that "we must do to save ourselves!", and those actions are always a) part of the liberal agenda, b) involve reducing our standard of living, and c) negatively impact most people while further lining the pockets of the rich and powerful.
Nowhere do we see proposals that make more electricity available to more people, nowhere does anyone point out that 85% of all resources are used by industry (therefore reducing home electricity consumption is less effective), no one proposes solutions for a decentralized grid, or reducing consumption by giving everyone fast internet access (doing things online generally uses much fewer resources than in person), or changing tax rules to promote telecommuting, or any of a hundred other easy changes that would make our lives better while being more efficient. It's always about enduring more hardship.
Point5: From my view, the "correct side" has lost a lot of credibility simply by their actions over the last 3 months.
If "that side" will riot over the outcome of a fair election, headline unsubstantiated lies, leak secret information for political assassination, call for literal assassination, how is it that they have any credibility over other issues?
Leonardo DiCaprio flies an eyebrow artist 7,000 miles to do his eyebrows, and we're supposed to believe him about global warming?
It's not that I don't believe in the science behind global warming, I do.
I just don't believe in the politics of global warming, that's all.
This idiot is one of the people that has made the internet so unpleasant.
One of the perennial problems with on Slashdot is that arguments can simply attack the person making them.
The greeks noted that arguments are made from "logos", "ethos", and "pathos". "Logos" is the logical basis of your argument, "Pathos" is the emotional appeal of your argument, and "Ethos" is the character of the person making the argument.
Thus, here on slashdot we can't discuss constitutional abuse of Kim Dotcom because he's an asshole, we can't discuss wikileaks because Assange is an attention whore, and we can't discuss CIA snooping because Snowden is a traitor.
It's so easy to dismiss an argument out of hand just by pointing out that the person making an argument is somehow inferior.
Nick Denton is such a completely rotten individual that this is not a valid issue that nerds should discuss or post views and opinions about.