We can probably guess why the channel was removed. Some of the videos seemed to be making medical claims about the drugs, and the descriptions had links where you could buy them... So basically a bunch of infomercials making claims not backed up by medical science.
Is this all we are left with?
I'd like to point out that we started with "everyone c'mon in, the service is free!",
...then "removed because this is clearly illegal speech"
what triggered this is folks think Trump and his Cabinet are crazy enough to actually go to war and let NK make good on their threat to flatten Seoul.
No! What really triggered this is folks think Trump is literally Hitler!
(Gotta love the gymnastics people are attempting, just to put Trump in a bad light here.)
The reality is that he probably doesn't even care about the Nobel prize - he probably viewed North Korea as another problem to fix, and went and fixed it. Next up: Iran.
My take, after watching his actions over the past couple of years, is that he doesn't actually care what people think or say about him.
So please tell us how he's flinging poo everywhere, has no plan and doesn't think and doesn't read and is stupid and immature and is literally Hitler...
..and has somehow just racked up yet another massive win.
...how many years Trump, sons and lawyers are going to collectively get lol?
Um... none?
You do realize that the Republicans sent a recommendation for prosecution to the AG for Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Loretta Lynch, right?
And unlike nebulous charge of "collusion", the recommendation letter lays out the specific actions these people took and the specific federal laws that were broken.
You probably didn't hear about that - the MSM was pretty quiet about it.
Also, you do know that the original FISA court warrant was invalid on its face, so any evidence Mueller uncovers would be thrown out, right?
Also, there's been no leaks of evidence from the Muller investigation, even though everything *else* seems to have been leaked. Even when those leaks are a violation of federal law, they still happen, and yet none of them have been about evidence.
Also note that impeaching the president is an extremely high bar to clear. President Clinton was caught on camera in a baldfaced lie to congress and the people of the US ("I did not have sexual relations with that woman"), and was acquitted.
Do you think saying “I hope you can let this go” rises to that level?
The head of the CIA using an AOL account isn't as bad as it seems.
Brennan had an account with AOL from the beginning of the internet, and only used it for personal, trivial things. He had a strong password, and didn't reuse passwords. All his work-related communications were done elsewhere.
The "hack" was Gamble calling up AOL pretending to be Brennan, and having a sysadmin change the password.
Brennan did nothing wrong, and could not have prevented this. In fact, he even did things right by not having any business-related communications on that account.
I don't know the specifics of James Clappers' hack, but it was very likely the same. Assuming Clapper didn't have work-related stuff on his personal E-mail (and there's no reason to suspect that he did), this was nothing more than some high-level people being embarrassed by a kid hacker.
The problem with the situation is that most investors *want* Tesla to fail so that they can make money from the short sales.
OTOH, Elon Musk is aware of the shorts and tends to do something to prop up the stock price whenever it drops a little. Like announcing a new model or a new production goal. (The production goals are never met, but the announcements make the stock tick up a couple of percent.)
So right now we're awash in bear market opinions, and many suggestive (but worthless) statements keep making the rounds such as:
"Tesla has never made a profit" "Tesla loses money on every car they sell" "Tesla only survives due to government handouts" "Tesla is so far behind that some people will get their cars $SOMENUMBER years from now" "Tesla is burning through cash, will be bankrupt in $NUM months" "Musk is a serial liar"
Those are the highlights - have I missed any?
To analyze #4 as an example ("burning through cash"), note that this is something the CFO and CEO keep track of and anticipate, and are responsible for raising more cash before the bankruptcy actually happens. Also, specifically Tesla predicts that they won't need another round of financing, but that option is certainly open if they need it.
It's nigh impossible to get an accurate assessment of Tesla's worth right now, due to corruption in reporting.
Tesla expects to turn a profit for the first time later this year. Their stock will probably skyrocket when that happens.
Been lurking here since the early days. Glad it's not just me seeing this.
I just don't get how slash ended up populated with trolls. Maybe all the reasonable people (like you) have left leaving only the dregs?
I miss the interesting conversations about geeky stuff that used to be the staple here.
I thought that alzheimers post might bring up some knowledgeable folk and interesting insight but it's just more bitching by small minded whiny right wing trolls.
Slashdot was originally run with the goal of excellence, then sold to people with a different goal.
Whipslash has said (in a comment) that he's not interested in making Slashdot popular, but that it's being run for a different reason.
He didn't say what that reason was, but my impression was that he wanted to push a political agenda. He used that reason to counter suggestions that people make for becoming more popular.
So comparisons to what other sites do, or looking at Slashdot historical popularity, come to naught: it's not being run for those reasons. In particular, looking at the historical charts, Slashdot took a huge hit in popularity when name-calling became political discourse. For comparison, Hackaday avoids political controversy and has stayed more-or-less constant over the same several years.
It's a shame, really. Slashdot was the premier site for nerd current affairs, but it's management decisions have left it mostly a den of trolls.
If Slashdot were sold to a real businessman, it could probably build it's reputation and popularity once again.
It's more the down modding of any dissenting opinions that are critical of trump that are the problem. Even when they do end up with a positive score there are always troll and flamebait mods too.
Try sorting the dissenting opinions into "insults" versus "insight".
Almost all the "dissenting opinions" here are just simple name calling and deserve to be modded down.
Most of the rest are simple "I think $THE_OPPOSITE", with no background or support.
If you look at comments with that filter, I think you'll find that it's the insults that get modded down.
But for tall the wrong reasons. I think Amazon is the only thing keeping the USPS from insolvency. It's probably a good idea to look into why they're both broke and bad at their job.
I rather suspect that he has access to really good base information on the subject, while we are all relegated to commenting on news articles (that have to make money by with selling shock and outrage).
Also, he has at least some familiarity and ability with finance, unlike many other politicians.
In any event, lets assume he's bumbling into a subject which we've identified as a problem for many years. He might accidentally find an actual problem, and in his awkward, inept way come up with a plan for a solution that (over a couple of years) solves the problem.
Or he might decide there's really no problem there, and the matter will fade from public memory.
In any case, it's probably good that someone is looking into the problem in the first place.
This reported number doesn't pass my smell test, either.
With such a precipitous drop in users, you'd probably hear the entire fabric of the universe groaning and throwing off glowing metallic divots as it passed through some kind of nearly impenetrable Wrong Stuff barrier.
If true, this story would already be the Mount Krakatoa of the social media era.
Maxwell Smart: Would you believe "1 in 10 are thinking about maybe deleting their account"?
Whether it is mere perception or not, companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc are seen to be anti-competitive and a net detriment to the overall market. But perception is usually the basis for laws and regulations despite the best intentions.
These guys need to get out in front of the perception and "do something" (I have no idea what that would be), or when the Democrats eventually do regain the majority (and they will...it's all a cycle), we will end up with an incomprehensible mess of regulations and restrictions that nobody wants to deal with.
04/8/18 – Facebook censors Diamond and Silk’s page, labeling them “unsafe to the community.” The outspoken sisters were were provided with no reason why their videos were labeled as unsafe. 11/2/17 – The president’s Twitter handle, @RealDonaldTrump, is deactivated for 11 minutes. 10/9/17 – Twitter shuts down Congressman Marsha Blackburn’s campaign’s ability to promote her announcement video because of pro-life statements. 09/9/17 – A pro-Trump YouTube star has her song “Make America Great Again” taken down from YouTube. The company refuses to comment on this specific case. 10/12/16 – Google’s YouTube censors conservative video channel by labeling it “restricted adult content.” 06/22/16 – Anti-Hillary Clinton game removed from Google Play Store, but “Punch the Trump” game remains. 06/10/16 – Investigative video released showing how Google manipulates search results to favor Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election. 06/26/06 – Google begins to prioritize its own services over those of start-up competitor Foundem.com in search results.
Because we all know that no Russian (or Republican or Democrat, for that matter) would ever LIE about who was behind a political ad....
Note that there is plenty of room for a First Amendment challenge to this as well. It's been established for a long time that ANONYMOUS political speech is protected by the First....
Firstly, it's not only political ads, but "issue" ads. IOW, they have license to determine that *anything* at *any* time is an issue and requires separate scrutiny.
Secondly, they will claim that you must identify yourself and not lie in order to purchase these sorts of ads, and if they suspect that you are lying in any details they can pull your ads. IOW, they can pull ads at any time and require you to send proof of identity; for example: a utility bill for the registered address plus driver's license.
So they can take any subject and suddenly decide that it's a political "issue" and yank ads promoting one side until people can positively identify.
And the left will point out that they are not the government, are not bound by the first amendment, and they can run their business any way they want to. If you don't like their services, you don't have to advertise on twitter.
(Violent opinions against straights/males/white will be allowed because "diversity", while gun opinions and anti-trans discussion will be suppressed because "we need you to identify yourself before posting ads about these issues".)
It'll work perfectly, just not in the way they are describing it.
In light of Facebook’s data scandal that exposed the data of 87 million users [...] Gab is ad-free and supported by our GabPro customers with no need for mass data collection.
Gab also unveiled their user-data management panel where you can delete older posts by date range, and other good stuff.
if you ARE gay but still in the closet. Word seems to be that VR eye tracking will remain confidential information for reasons like this, but it'll be difficult to control in VR social apps where gaze is sent over the internet to be seen by others (since the possibility of eye contact is arguably a benefit of the tech).
I was working for a company that did eye tracking computer input for disabled persons when this question came up: is it possible to tell if a person is gay by analyzing their eye movements?
The theory was that the pupil dilates when a man views a naked woman, would the same happen when a gay man views a naked man?
A literature search turned up an experiment (that I can't find at the moment) where this theory was tested on prison inmates who were definitively categorized as gay or straight based on their behaviour outside of prison, using eye tracking equipment available at the time.
This was back in the years when gay was illegal. People were looking for a way to test for sexual orientation. (1950s or 60's maybe?)
The study conclusion was that this does NOT work at all. IIRC, the results were so close to random that one couldn't even say that the results were inconclusive.
I looked through the experimental procedure and couldn't find any obvious bias or flaw, so I expect this is a strong and reproducible [non] result.
Apparently the pupil dilates for all sorts of reasons, including when you see any kind of threat. A naked man is seen as a threat by a non-gay person, and other confounding factors come into play such as general interest, noticing some aspect of the image that is strange or unusual to the individual.
There are privacy aspects to eye tracking, but being outed as gay is probably not one of them.
Imports reduce the amount of American labor spent on obtaining a thing (i.e. you work 3 hours for American-made pants, 1.86 hours for the same exact quality of Chinese pants, and more than 3 hours for American-made pants at a higher quality, assuming the American manufacturing industry has equivalent or better experience and expertise in manufacturing compared to China). That reduces American poverty and frees up American labor to do things like build great new technology industries.
Wow, what an insightful comment!
If we make everything overseas, it would eliminate US poverty altogether!
It's a catch 22. The FDA usual process is slow and plodding but results in medications and medical procedures which are generally safe and effective by reducing as much risk as possible. However it takes a LONG time to perform all the necessary studies and clinical trials and critically ill patients die while they wait.
The catch is that if you are trying to get approval for a novel medication that saves lives of the critically ill, how do you justify the delay needed to do all the safety and effectiveness studies? People will die if you don't try, but you might also kill and/or cure. What to do?
What you should do is put all the responsibility for making a mistake on the bureaucrats responsible for safety protocols, and all the costs associated with those safety protocols should be borne by the drug manufacturers.
In a game-theory sense, that gives you the safest drugs possible within the system.
Then you mandate that no one can go outside this system - no one can decide for themselves whether to take a risk on a non-tested procedure or drug, even if their disease is known to be terminal or completely debilitating.
It's unfortunate that people feel the need to go outside this system. If you follow the hacker community, there are a bunch of projects that could very easily be described as medical devices and experimental procedures. Things like home-built hearing aids, self (by the patient) adjusting glasses, and so on.
The idea was to build profiles of people that included their medical conditions, information that health systems have, as well as social and economic factors gleaned from Facebook.
Also also, Diamond and Silk (two pro-Trump bloggers from the election cycle) were deemed unsafe for the community by facebook. Their followers no longer receive a notice when they make a new post.
From Facebook:
"This decision is final and it is not appeal-able in any way." (Note: This is the exact wording that FB emailed to [Diamond and Silk].)
Completely fucking crazy? How can you do this after what just happened? What is wrong with these animals?
Logic and rationality, apparently.
They note an enormous increase in safety when cars are autonomous, want to be on the forefront of a developing technology that has benefits to society, and aren't swayed by the daily panic dished out in the media.
Or in other words, they take a measured, considered approach instead of running around panicky with quick fixes.
According to your sig, you're running for office as a representative from Maryland.
Good on you, we need more smart people in congress!
Please be aware that most economics is based on measures of corporate profits that ignores the human condition. It's *entirely* possible to have a healthy economy, by those measures, up to the point where your country falls to civil war.
As a representative, please consider that the welfare of the people is paramount to the stability of the country. It does no good to have healthy businesses and a good looking economy if the people are miserable.
Making things more-expensive by producing them domestically when it's cheaper to do so abroad always hurts the poor and middle-class by reducing their purchasing power (making them more-poor).
Let me introduce you to the difference between linear functions and curves.
Assume you eliminate one job at $40,000 per year, but make widgets cheaper by $.02.
If there are enough widget sales across the country, the aggregate savings can add up to much more than the $40,000 lost domestically. One person has to find a new job, but millions of dollars can be saved overall.
The problem is that "one person has to find a new job" isn't free. It puts stress on the job market, driving down salaries, and incrementally increases the chances of someone turning to crime and welfare.
For each case of producing something cheaper abroad, there's a corresponding *rise* in expenses associated by having an extra person out of work. The 2nd person has a higher social cost than the 1st person.
So there's a tradeoff. The first couple of people out of work is probably a net win for the country overall, but you quickly reach a point where domestic jobs are hard to get, and the curve becomes flat. When there are more people than there are jobs, the social cost greatly outweighs the financial benefit.
Being unable to find work hurts the poor much more than reducing their purchasing power.
You're assuming a linear relationship to a curved function.
Importing cheap semiconductors to the EU, designing and assembling my technology in Romania and then selling the finished product to the US could well be cheaper and more profitable than producing it in China and importing it directly from China to the US because the tariffs are going to even out the cents I have to pay the Romanians more? And all that without risking having my designs stolen so the Chinese could crank out cheap knockoffs?
On behalf of the EU, I wish to express my gratitude towards dear leader across the pond.
Don't discount the economic damage done by the cheap knockoff process - it's so common that it's become a meme. It's nigh impossible for anyone to make electronics in China any more, even small hobbyist designers (think Adafruit and Sparkfun) get their products copied and sold for pennies.
Then there's the direct theft of IP (trade secrets, business practices, and such) that the FBI estimates at $600B/year.
Then there's selling steel and aluminum at below-market prices until our domestic producers go out of business (at last count, we had one steel foundry left that was capable of making the steel plates needed for military hardware).
Then there's the lack of IP enforcement, so that lots of Chinese run pirated code and view bootleg media without paying for it.
Then there's "thousand grains of sand", where Chinese students and scientists (in the US) coming back to their country are encouraged to bring one or two small pieces of technological or scientific information.
Then there's keeping their currency artificially low, so that we always have a trade deficit with them (they end up getting more and more of our money).
China has consistently violated their trade agreement in every possible way, and has done so for decades.
We're *already* in a trade war, it's only just now that we're doing something about it.
Slashdot Mirror
We can probably guess why the channel was removed. Some of the videos seemed to be making medical claims about the drugs, and the descriptions had links where you could buy them... So basically a bunch of infomercials making claims not backed up by medical science.
Is this all we are left with?
I'd like to point out that we started with "everyone c'mon in, the service is free!",
Are we there yet?
what triggered this is folks think Trump and his Cabinet are crazy enough to actually go to war and let NK make good on their threat to flatten Seoul.
No! What really triggered this is folks think Trump is literally Hitler!
(Gotta love the gymnastics people are attempting, just to put Trump in a bad light here.)
The reality is that he probably doesn't even care about the Nobel prize - he probably viewed North Korea as another problem to fix, and went and fixed it. Next up: Iran.
My take, after watching his actions over the past couple of years, is that he doesn't actually care what people think or say about him.
So please tell us how he's flinging poo everywhere, has no plan and doesn't think and doesn't read and is stupid and immature and is literally Hitler...
For the world.
...how many years Trump, sons and lawyers are going to collectively get lol?
Um... none?
You do realize that the Republicans sent a recommendation for prosecution to the AG for Hillary Clinton,
James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Loretta Lynch, right?
And unlike nebulous charge of "collusion", the recommendation letter lays out the specific actions these people took and the specific federal laws that were broken.
You probably didn't hear about that - the MSM was pretty quiet about it.
And also note that Rep. Dana Rohrabacher claims to have physical proof that the Russians did not hack the DNC.
You knew about that, right?
Also, you do know that the original FISA court warrant was invalid on its face, so any evidence Mueller uncovers would be thrown out, right?
Also, there's been no leaks of evidence from the Muller investigation, even though everything *else* seems to have been leaked. Even when those leaks are a violation of federal law, they still happen, and yet none of them have been about evidence.
Also note that impeaching the president is an extremely high bar to clear. President Clinton was caught on camera in a baldfaced lie to congress and the people of the US ("I did not have sexual relations with that woman"), and was acquitted.
Do you think saying “I hope you can let this go” rises to that level?
You're mad.
The head of the CIA using an AOL account isn't as bad as it seems.
Brennan had an account with AOL from the beginning of the internet, and only used it for personal, trivial things. He had a strong password, and didn't reuse passwords. All his work-related communications were done elsewhere.
The "hack" was Gamble calling up AOL pretending to be Brennan, and having a sysadmin change the password.
Brennan did nothing wrong, and could not have prevented this. In fact, he even did things right by not having any business-related communications on that account.
I don't know the specifics of James Clappers' hack, but it was very likely the same. Assuming Clapper didn't have work-related stuff on his personal E-mail (and there's no reason to suspect that he did), this was nothing more than some high-level people being embarrassed by a kid hacker.
Found the guy that works at Tesla
Or has invested in them :D
Fair point: I am invested in Tesla.
Tesla is the most shorted company right now.
The problem with the situation is that most investors *want* Tesla to fail so that they can make money from the short sales.
OTOH, Elon Musk is aware of the shorts and tends to do something to prop up the stock price whenever it drops a little. Like announcing a new model or a new production goal. (The production goals are never met, but the announcements make the stock tick up a couple of percent.)
So right now we're awash in bear market opinions, and many suggestive (but worthless) statements keep making the rounds such as:
"Tesla has never made a profit"
"Tesla loses money on every car they sell"
"Tesla only survives due to government handouts"
"Tesla is so far behind that some people will get their cars $SOMENUMBER years from now"
"Tesla is burning through cash, will be bankrupt in $NUM months"
"Musk is a serial liar"
Those are the highlights - have I missed any?
To analyze #4 as an example ("burning through cash"), note that this is something the CFO and CEO keep track of and anticipate, and are responsible for raising more cash before the bankruptcy actually happens. Also, specifically Tesla predicts that they won't need another round of financing, but that option is certainly open if they need it.
It's nigh impossible to get an accurate assessment of Tesla's worth right now, due to corruption in reporting.
Tesla expects to turn a profit for the first time later this year. Their stock will probably skyrocket when that happens.
Been lurking here since the early days. Glad it's not just me seeing this.
I just don't get how slash ended up populated with trolls. Maybe all the reasonable people (like you) have left leaving only the dregs?
I miss the interesting conversations about geeky stuff that used to be the staple here.
I thought that alzheimers post might bring up some knowledgeable folk and interesting insight but it's just more bitching by small minded whiny right wing trolls.
Slashdot was originally run with the goal of excellence, then sold to people with a different goal.
Whipslash has said (in a comment) that he's not interested in making Slashdot popular, but that it's being run for a different reason.
He didn't say what that reason was, but my impression was that he wanted to push a political agenda. He used that reason to counter suggestions that people make for becoming more popular.
So comparisons to what other sites do, or looking at Slashdot historical popularity, come to naught: it's not being run for those reasons. In particular, looking at the historical charts, Slashdot took a huge hit in popularity when name-calling became political discourse. For comparison, Hackaday avoids political controversy and has stayed more-or-less constant over the same several years.
It's a shame, really. Slashdot was the premier site for nerd current affairs, but it's management decisions have left it mostly a den of trolls.
If Slashdot were sold to a real businessman, it could probably build it's reputation and popularity once again.
It's more the down modding of any dissenting opinions that are critical of trump that are the problem. Even when they do end up with a positive score there are always troll and flamebait mods too.
Try sorting the dissenting opinions into "insults" versus "insight".
Almost all the "dissenting opinions" here are just simple name calling and deserve to be modded down.
Most of the rest are simple "I think $THE_OPPOSITE", with no background or support.
If you look at comments with that filter, I think you'll find that it's the insults that get modded down.
True insightful posts tend to get modded up.
But for tall the wrong reasons. I think Amazon is the only thing keeping the USPS from insolvency. It's probably a good idea to look into why they're both broke and bad at their job.
I rather suspect that he has access to really good base information on the subject, while we are all relegated to commenting on news articles (that have to make money by with selling shock and outrage).
Also, he has at least some familiarity and ability with finance, unlike many other politicians.
In any event, lets assume he's bumbling into a subject which we've identified as a problem for many years. He might accidentally find an actual problem, and in his awkward, inept way come up with a plan for a solution that (over a couple of years) solves the problem.
Or he might decide there's really no problem there, and the matter will fade from public memory.
In any case, it's probably good that someone is looking into the problem in the first place.
"...and the circle is not perfect."
No such thing as a perfect circle anywhere, except maybe in just the math itself - and pi goes on & on...
Drop a pebble into a calm pool of water?
(I commented to my physics professor once that primitive humans see lines everywhere, but never circles. This is what he responded with.)
This reported number doesn't pass my smell test, either.
With such a precipitous drop in users, you'd probably hear the entire fabric of the universe groaning and throwing off glowing metallic divots as it passed through some kind of nearly impenetrable Wrong Stuff barrier.
If true, this story would already be the Mount Krakatoa of the social media era.
Maxwell Smart: Would you believe "1 in 10 are thinking about maybe deleting their account"?
Sir, you win the "Douglas Adams" award for today.
Thanks for the great post - that's exactly what Shashdot should be about!
Whether it is mere perception or not, companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc are seen to be anti-competitive and a net detriment to the overall market. But perception is usually the basis for laws and regulations despite the best intentions.
These guys need to get out in front of the perception and "do something" (I have no idea what that would be), or when the Democrats eventually do regain the majority (and they will...it's all a cycle), we will end up with an incomprehensible mess of regulations and restrictions that nobody wants to deal with.
04/8/18 – Facebook censors Diamond and Silk’s page, labeling them “unsafe to the community.” The outspoken sisters were were provided with no reason why their videos were labeled as unsafe.
11/2/17 – The president’s Twitter handle, @RealDonaldTrump, is deactivated for 11 minutes.
10/9/17 – Twitter shuts down Congressman Marsha Blackburn’s campaign’s ability to promote her announcement video because of pro-life statements.
09/9/17 – A pro-Trump YouTube star has her song “Make America Great Again” taken down from YouTube. The company refuses to comment on this specific case.
10/12/16 – Google’s YouTube censors conservative video channel by labeling it “restricted adult content.”
06/22/16 – Anti-Hillary Clinton game removed from Google Play Store, but “Punch the Trump” game remains.
06/10/16 – Investigative video released showing how Google manipulates search results to favor Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.
06/26/06 – Google begins to prioritize its own services over those of start-up competitor Foundem.com in search results.
They are already doing something!
Because we all know that no Russian (or Republican or Democrat, for that matter) would ever LIE about who was behind a political ad....
Note that there is plenty of room for a First Amendment challenge to this as well. It's been established for a long time that ANONYMOUS political speech is protected by the First....
Firstly, it's not only political ads, but "issue" ads. IOW, they have license to determine that *anything* at *any* time is an issue and requires separate scrutiny.
Secondly, they will claim that you must identify yourself and not lie in order to purchase these sorts of ads, and if they suspect that you are lying in any details they can pull your ads. IOW, they can pull ads at any time and require you to send proof of identity; for example: a utility bill for the registered address plus driver's license.
So they can take any subject and suddenly decide that it's a political "issue" and yank ads promoting one side until people can positively identify.
And the left will point out that they are not the government, are not bound by the first amendment, and they can run their business any way they want to. If you don't like their services, you don't have to advertise on twitter.
(Violent opinions against straights/males/white will be allowed because "diversity", while gun opinions and anti-trans discussion will be suppressed because "we need you to identify yourself before posting ads about these issues".)
It'll work perfectly, just not in the way they are describing it.
Gab just today sent this E-mail:
In light of Facebook’s data scandal that exposed the data of 87 million users [...] Gab is ad-free and supported by our GabPro customers with no need for mass data collection.
Gab also unveiled their user-data management panel where you can delete older posts by date range, and other good stuff.
if you ARE gay but still in the closet. Word seems to be that VR eye tracking will remain confidential information for reasons like this, but it'll be difficult to control in VR social apps where gaze is sent over the internet to be seen by others (since the possibility of eye contact is arguably a benefit of the tech).
I was working for a company that did eye tracking computer input for disabled persons when this question came up: is it possible to tell if a person is gay by analyzing their eye movements?
The theory was that the pupil dilates when a man views a naked woman, would the same happen when a gay man views a naked man?
A literature search turned up an experiment (that I can't find at the moment) where this theory was tested on prison inmates who were definitively categorized as gay or straight based on their behaviour outside of prison, using eye tracking equipment available at the time.
This was back in the years when gay was illegal. People were looking for a way to test for sexual orientation. (1950s or 60's maybe?)
The study conclusion was that this does NOT work at all. IIRC, the results were so close to random that one couldn't even say that the results were inconclusive.
I looked through the experimental procedure and couldn't find any obvious bias or flaw, so I expect this is a strong and reproducible [non] result.
Apparently the pupil dilates for all sorts of reasons, including when you see any kind of threat. A naked man is seen as a threat by a non-gay person, and other confounding factors come into play such as general interest, noticing some aspect of the image that is strange or unusual to the individual.
There are privacy aspects to eye tracking, but being outed as gay is probably not one of them.
Imports reduce the amount of American labor spent on obtaining a thing (i.e. you work 3 hours for American-made pants, 1.86 hours for the same exact quality of Chinese pants, and more than 3 hours for American-made pants at a higher quality, assuming the American manufacturing industry has equivalent or better experience and expertise in manufacturing compared to China). That reduces American poverty and frees up American labor to do things like build great new technology industries.
Wow, what an insightful comment!
If we make everything overseas, it would eliminate US poverty altogether!
DAFUQ?!?!?!
You just spent an entire post advocating a literally stifling bureaucracy in charge of a huge portion of health care, and now you say that won't work?
Whoosh...
It's a catch 22. The FDA usual process is slow and plodding but results in medications and medical procedures which are generally safe and effective by reducing as much risk as possible. However it takes a LONG time to perform all the necessary studies and clinical trials and critically ill patients die while they wait.
The catch is that if you are trying to get approval for a novel medication that saves lives of the critically ill, how do you justify the delay needed to do all the safety and effectiveness studies? People will die if you don't try, but you might also kill and/or cure. What to do?
What you should do is put all the responsibility for making a mistake on the bureaucrats responsible for safety protocols, and all the costs associated with those safety protocols should be borne by the drug manufacturers.
In a game-theory sense, that gives you the safest drugs possible within the system.
Then you mandate that no one can go outside this system - no one can decide for themselves whether to take a risk on a non-tested procedure or drug, even if their disease is known to be terminal or completely debilitating.
It's unfortunate that people feel the need to go outside this system. If you follow the hacker community, there are a bunch of projects that could very easily be described as medical devices and experimental procedures. Things like home-built hearing aids, self (by the patient) adjusting glasses, and so on.
Some of these are downright scary.
I suppose it's like any industry. Big, entrenched companies become paralyzed with bureaucracy, and are eventually replaced by small, nimble startups.
Analysis of a Recent Facebook company announcement:
Buried in a company announcement was acknowledgement that nearly all of its users have been targeted to some degree.
That makes about 2 billion users whose privacy was leaked.
Also, Facebook was trying to collect patient data from hospitals:
The idea was to build profiles of people that included their medical conditions, information that health systems have, as well as social and economic factors gleaned from Facebook.
Also also, Diamond and Silk (two pro-Trump bloggers from the election cycle) were deemed unsafe for the community by facebook. Their followers no longer receive a notice when they make a new post.
From Facebook:
"This decision is final and it is not appeal-able in any way." (Note: This is the exact wording that FB emailed to [Diamond and Silk].)
Completely fucking crazy? How can you do this after what just happened? What is wrong with these animals?
Logic and rationality, apparently.
They note an enormous increase in safety when cars are autonomous, want to be on the forefront of a developing technology that has benefits to society, and aren't swayed by the daily panic dished out in the media.
Or in other words, they take a measured, considered approach instead of running around panicky with quick fixes.
Far from it. But he reminds me of the routine of a well known local comedy duo:
A: Are you so dumb or are you just faking it?
B: Why should I fake being dumb?
What is the non-dumb move that fixes the problem then?
Come on, tell us! If the president's move is so obviously dumb, what *should* we be doing to fix the litany of problems?
Your post implies that you're much smarter than him.
Don't hold back, tell us please!
According to your sig, you're running for office as a representative from Maryland.
Good on you, we need more smart people in congress!
Please be aware that most economics is based on measures of corporate profits that ignores the human condition. It's *entirely* possible to have a healthy economy, by those measures, up to the point where your country falls to civil war.
As a representative, please consider that the welfare of the people is paramount to the stability of the country. It does no good to have healthy businesses and a good looking economy if the people are miserable.
Making things more-expensive by producing them domestically when it's cheaper to do so abroad always hurts the poor and middle-class by reducing their purchasing power (making them more-poor).
Let me introduce you to the difference between linear functions and curves.
Assume you eliminate one job at $40,000 per year, but make widgets cheaper by $.02.
If there are enough widget sales across the country, the aggregate savings can add up to much more than the $40,000 lost domestically. One person has to find a new job, but millions of dollars can be saved overall.
The problem is that "one person has to find a new job" isn't free. It puts stress on the job market, driving down salaries, and incrementally increases the chances of someone turning to crime and welfare.
For each case of producing something cheaper abroad, there's a corresponding *rise* in expenses associated by having an extra person out of work. The 2nd person has a higher social cost than the 1st person.
So there's a tradeoff. The first couple of people out of work is probably a net win for the country overall, but you quickly reach a point where domestic jobs are hard to get, and the curve becomes flat. When there are more people than there are jobs, the social cost greatly outweighs the financial benefit.
Being unable to find work hurts the poor much more than reducing their purchasing power.
You're assuming a linear relationship to a curved function.
Importing cheap semiconductors to the EU, designing and assembling my technology in Romania and then selling the finished product to the US could well be cheaper and more profitable than producing it in China and importing it directly from China to the US because the tariffs are going to even out the cents I have to pay the Romanians more? And all that without risking having my designs stolen so the Chinese could crank out cheap knockoffs?
On behalf of the EU, I wish to express my gratitude towards dear leader across the pond.
Don't discount the economic damage done by the cheap knockoff process - it's so common that it's become a meme. It's nigh impossible for anyone to make electronics in China any more, even small hobbyist designers (think Adafruit and Sparkfun) get their products copied and sold for pennies.
Then there's the direct theft of IP (trade secrets, business practices, and such) that the FBI estimates at $600B/year.
Then there's selling steel and aluminum at below-market prices until our domestic producers go out of business (at last count, we had one steel foundry left that was capable of making the steel plates needed for military hardware).
Then there's the lack of IP enforcement, so that lots of Chinese run pirated code and view bootleg media without paying for it.
Then there's "thousand grains of sand", where Chinese students and scientists (in the US) coming back to their country are encouraged to bring one or two small pieces of technological or scientific information.
Then there's keeping their currency artificially low, so that we always have a trade deficit with them (they end up getting more and more of our money).
China has consistently violated their trade agreement in every possible way, and has done so for decades.
We're *already* in a trade war, it's only just now that we're doing something about it.
As much as people hate Breitbart on this forum, their coverage style for breaking news is actually pretty good
It's a page with minute-by-minute updates of what's generally going on in the situation.
As of right now (2:05 CA local time), reports that the shooter is female.