I remember when these were all over the news because they were being hailed as the the future of bicyclist skulls. And then they disappeared. At the cost of THREE-HUNDRED euros per use, have these actually been adapted in large numbers or is it still a very boutique item?
1. People driving cars have seat belts, multiple air bags, a steel cage, and steel armor. That is all better than any bike helmet. 2. Most bicyclists drive as well. For the vast majority of bicyclists, it's a choice to ride a bike for a trip. (That also means they pay into the road system via fuel taxes, income taxes, etc... just in case that was the next comment.) 3. All professional racing drivers and racing bicyclists wear helmets because they're in a high risk industry and have been thoroughly educated on the value of a helmet given said risk.
And still, I support your questioning of the focus on bike helmets. A bike helmet is literally the last line of defense against injury while riding a bike. First, is good bike education to PREVENT hazardous situations from occurring. This education should instill the value of predictability on the road, communication among other road users, recognizing existing and developing hazardous situations, and always maintaining maximum visibility. Second, this bike education should teach bicyclists how to AVOID imminent hazardous situations via bicycling handling training and reaction preparation. The last layer of protection is injury MITIGATION in the form of gloves, helmets, etc. If you're a sufficiently skilled and experienced bicyclist (ie. have taken a full bicycle education course), chances are that you may never NEED to put your helmet to use, but it's a good layer of safety to have in a country where that vast majority of motorists on the road (1) don't understand the law surrounding bicycling, (2) don't understand how bicyclists move on the road, and (3) may be resentful to bicyclists on the road.
I am actually amenable to this idea in a twisted philosophical way, but the complexities surrounding autonomous vehicles are multi-faceted. In my original post, I basically lambast those who ignore the current status of AI development (replacing it with their imagination of what it could be in the future) and those who presume that driving is "easy" because so many people do it.
Beyond that is the actual financial issue. Let's say we can make a software system that could make decisions on the road at least as well as a 16 y/o driver with 3 months of driving experience. That hypothetical person is legally allowed to drive, right? So why wouldn't a similarly skilled AI? Let's also assume that this AI has similar observational skills (but using LIDAR, RADAR, video, sound, etc.), and has a similar reaction speed.
So, our "16y/o" AI still gets in crashes. Some people still die. But it's WAY BETTER than drunk drivers. Problem solved, right?
Not really. Because now, all of those liability from that property damage and bodily harm is centralized to a few very deep pockets. Right now, if a loved one is killed by an indigent drunk driver, you could TRY to sue him/her for damages, loss of wages, pain and suffering, etc., but you're unlikely to get anything out of the person. But if Waymo/Google/Alphabet are named as defendants in the case, you best believe that that every death will cost millions.
That alone is why companies don't actually expect to release and produce AVs in the mass market until they're not just "better than most humans" (which they're actually relenting as really, really difficult). What they know now is that they can't be released until they're nearly perfect or it just won't be worth the financial risk to the company.
People like to say "everyone's stupid" and thus "if AVs are 10% better than human drivers, it will be worth it". But once you talk to the actual developers and technologists and ignore the futurists, they'll tell you that getting a machine to make decisions even half as good of humans is really, really, really difficult.
We don't give "stupid" people enough credit. The innate base intelligence of someone that doesn't regularly kill others on the road is very difficult to emulate, regardless of how we consider them in relation to the more intelligent members of the species. They don't just follow lines in the road, they adjust to lighting conditions, curvature in the road, they know how people will swerve in advance of potholes. They can quickly decide if someone/thing is about to go into the road or even make subjective judgements on how another vehicle will move on a freeway based on minute experiences in the last 30 seconds.
From a purely decision-based analysis, driving an automobile is extremely complex... still too complex for a computer to measure and judge appropriately to be autonomous. We'll get there... but it won't be quick, cheap, or easy.
Sure, you can paint it as his innate skill bringing in big bucks, but his skill only got him noticed. From hereon out, it's HIM as a person that's being sold for the entertainment of others. Personalities, performers, athletes-- they are all entertainers feeding the non-stop intrigue of ever more scrutinizing masses.
I hope the parents are putting aside significant portions of this kids' earnings for therapy, remedial education, legal protection, and history erasing so that when this all blows over (and it will... this kind of stuff always does), he'll have a safety net to catch him.
While setting up the advertisements, require the poster to agree that "The advertising of my product or service is not restricted by any fair access law such as... blah blah blah. I understand that adherence to any applicable laws regarding... is my responsibility and not that of Facebook."
And that's all that should happen. Facebook shouldn't be fined or have to go to court unless the City of Los Angeles can be sued for "allowing" someone to post a room rental advertisement on a lamp post despite it clearly reading "Mexicans need not apply."
The headline implies that these deliveries are being made in volume and consistently RIGHT NOW. The summary clarified that UPS has PARTNERED with another company and are PLANNING some TEST FLIGHTS.
That is very, very non-commital.
This type of journalism perpetuates tech myths with the massive population that knows enough to recognize shallow tech concepts but with almost no understanding of the actual state of the technology in question.
This kind of journalism is what will convinces people to invest their retirement funds in vaporware.
Between futurist articles making design concepts seem like reality, BS initial coin offerings, and venture-capital backed app services sounding like great investments because of amazing valuations despite no expectation of turning a profit EVER, we are doing a massive disservice to the less-knowledgeable when we exagerate the realities of tech.
I am tempted to go through all the techie and sci-fi uses of the term "Aurora" and make a single record of them all. From spaceship names to project codenames, it seems to be everywhere.
Every time this topic comes up, there's belly-aching about which time should be the permanent time. Late summer brightness or early summer brightness. Here's the thing-- people will complain at decreasing levels as time goes on. You'll get used to whatever change happens.
I'm part of an ethnic minority and I work in an industry that's traditionally dominated by a majority ethnicity. Were I to be interviewed for a segment on "ethnic minorities in this industry", but for that interview to be cut, I would still judge the entire segment within the context of its goals.
I would like to watch this 60-minutes segment and see if the goals of the segment (presumably to increase the acceptance of women in tech and to improve their treatment within the industry) would benefit or be hindered by Saujani's interview. If Saujani comes off as a firebrand and not a uniter, I wouldn't hold it against 60 minutes to omit her interview.
That is, of course, pure conjecture and that's all we have until we see everything.
You and I can have exactly the same goals of reducing racism in areas of high persistence of racism, but I guarantee my method of inclusion and sharing will consistently do more for our goals than would screaming at people and calling them racists. If you're genuinely goal oriented, choose the method that will most likely result in the achieving of those goals-- even if success isn't seen in your life time.
Looks, I'll be the first in line to trash Facebook for all the things they do wrong. But just the same, I prefer to have an honest discussion about root issues. Facebook didn't tell him mom that vaccinations were bad. Stupid people using Facebook did.
If you don't want to use Facebook because they're not cracking down on anti-vaxxer crap, fine, boycott it. I'm surprised all the flaws about Facebook haven't led you to boycott it until now, in fact. But don't suggest that Facebook is at fault. They're not.
- Pacific Bell didn't call in the bomb threat. - The US Postal Service didn't send someone anthrax. - Highway 101 didn't stop you from getting to work on time.
These are all networks being used by people to do harmful (or at the very least, stupid) things. Go after them. Regulate them. Do the hard work and propose how we're supposed to, in the realm of free speech and the right to be wrong, regulate stupid people.
Yes and no. It is USED as a broader term to mean all those things. However, it is deceptive to do so. Marketing departments try to distort existing vocabulary all the time with the intent of attaching current understanding to their very different product.
Artificial Intelligence is one example. The use of the term "ridesharing" by app-based taxi services is another. "Bikeshare and carshare" are short-term bike and car rentals. In fact, the entire "sharing" economy is actually just "short term rentals" or "services provided by an independent contractor".
It's all there to make you think it's something grander, innovative, and more meaningful than it actually is.
But please stop acting like the introduction and saturation of autonomous vehicles is imminent. I swear if I hear another grad student or middle-aged planner with a subscription to Wired exclaim how we need to be ready to change our entire road system because driverless cars are going to change EVERYTHING in the next 6 months, I'm going to scream.
If they're going to succeed, they're going to have to be nearly perfect on the roads that currently exist and be sufficiently affordable to compete with the likes of Uber/Lyft and private vehicle ownership. Anyone saying anything is either looking for investors, website clicks, or book sales.
They're just not there yet. They're not all that close. The closest (Waymo, Cruze) operate in extremely limited areas and are successful thus far by rote memorization, not adaptability.
Automobiles are an operational and infrastructural component. They're not quick to develop. They're not cheap to produce. And they're fraught with massive liability and risk.
Exactly. They could have just called Kevin Smith and asked, "Hey... we got these angry Christians... is this worth it?" to which he could respond, "Look, you know that's a stupid question. You're calling me because I wrote 'Dogma' which fucking killed it and you know it. Read the Wiki."
Yep, that's why it's an outlier. Reddit has the lowest-value users for advertisers of all social media sites **if you were to consider it a social media site**. Which almost no one does. People don't build and advertise networks of association on Reddit. Use of real names is rare. There are no "followings". Reddit is a discussion board.
See, here's the problem: The purpose of legislation is to make change. If that change is to happen, the legislation must pass votes. To get enough votes, you need to either dominate the House, Senate, and have the presidency in lock-down, OR you have to make friends with your political opponents.
The Democrats control one of the two legislative houses. They do not control the White House. If they want to pass anything, they need to speak the language of the conservatives.
But instead, they let Ocasio-Cortez (who is already a well-known and tainted name on the right) put forth this bill. There is SO MUCH concentrated liberalism in this bill, that I have zero expectation of it making any significant change.
Just look at what the preamble references (because this is what the right will fixate on):
- the cause of climate change (a vast portion of the right disagrees with human-caused climate change) - wage stagnation (the right is full of corporatists and "temporarily embarrassed millionaires") - bargaining power of workers (the right hates unions!) - resources for public sector workers (the right believes there should be fewer public sector workers!) - 1%ers (who do you think donate the most to the Republican party...) - the racial wealth divide (they prejudice the right as being racist and assume that bringing up the racial wealth divide will get them to side with the plan?) - the gender earnings gap (the right wants to control female bodies!! Why do you think they care about a gender earnings gap!?) - And here's the doozy: "Whereas climate change, pollution, and environmental destruction have exacerbated systemic racial, regional, social, environmental, and economic injustices (referred to in this preamble as ‘‘systemic injustices’’) by disproportionately affecting indigenous communities, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth (referred to in this preamble as ‘‘frontline and vulnerable communities’’)"
Everyone associated with this bill could have saved themselves A LOT of time by just writing "Allhu akbar, let's stop using oil tomorrow," because it would have gotten the exact same response on the right.
And then we don't win. Nobody wins. Nobody gains anything. Nothing changes.
Unless that was the goal. Maybe the Democrats don't actually want the goals of this bill to come to fruition. Maybe they just want to use Ocasio-Cortez as a token idealist that young liberals can look up to as a revolutionary. "If the Democrats have Ocasio-Cortez, then I want to support the Democrats!" And Ocasio-Cortez can take the heat. And all the more moderate Democrats can say, "Look, we're not nutso like crazy-eyes over there. Here's the more reasonable proposal."
This has always been a tongue-in-cheek requirement. They'll post it on their website, on a bulletin board in City Hall, and/or a local newspaper knowing damn well that drunk drivers plan their nights around the postings.
Said drivers, however, are willing to throw on Google Maps/Waze when they stumble into their vehicles after a night out. And Google/Waze will be there to help them crash into someone instead of being arrested.
"The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line."
From mass permanent public shaming for singular statements or 30-year-old acts of indiscretion, people will simply drop out from internet communication if they think earnest honesty, openness, or youthful rebellion will come back to ruin their lives.
Assume that someone deceives you and convinces you to unwittingly install a microphone in your home that they can turn on at any time. They haven't actually turned it on, no conversation was heard/recorded. Is it still officially bugging/eavesdropping?
"What escapes me is the importance of this revelation. Online polls are about as unscientific and irrelevant as you can get in the polling world."
See, that's where you let your intelligence get the best of you. The intent of polls is to measure the current status of opinion. Polls are USED, however, to suggest to those who prefer not to think critically HOW they should be thinking. As much as people like to assert that they'll make up their own mind, if they have an extreme minority opinion, they tend to change sides.
I'm still gobsmacked at how digital storage has changed. I got my first computer in the mid-1990s. It was someone's hand-me-down 286. It was already old, but I learned everything I could about DOS on it. When I built my first computer PC the summer before college, and I was stunned by the 3.5" form factor.
Then came 2.5" form factor, the various types of slash memory, etc. But SecureDigital... wow. One terabyte on an SD card?
This is not entirely false. My wife and I bought a small suitcase record player and an assortment of non-remastered Christmas music albums in November. There's an authenticity in the imperfections that we both value. The wife is still combing through local record shops trying to find some 1940s big band because she grew up watching that era's musicals.
The player also has its own Li-on battery & speakers, serves as a Bluetooth speaker, and can play directly from a USB drive. It's a modern, stow-able record player.
I'm a big fan of minimizing the cost of death on families/loved ones. That people are expected to shell out thousands of dollars in response to someone dying so they can take up room under ground, in a mausoleum, or on someone's shelf seems ineffectual to me. I like the idea of full-body donation like ScienceCare: Upon acceptance, Science Care covers all costs of donation, including cremation, transportation, and filing of the death certificate. Tissue not recovered for research and education is cremated and returned in 3-5 weeks. If you also want to be an organ transplant donor, click here for details.
"Upon acceptance, Science Care covers all costs of donation, including cremation, transportation, and filing of the death certificate. Tissue not recovered for research and education is cremated and returned in 3-5 weeks. If you also want to be an organ transplant donor, click here for details."
As someone who just wants to be useful to others, I can't find a more honorable way to be discarded. If someone wants to memorialize me, stick a plaque on a bench.
Slashdot Mirror
When you're sittin' at the table (Blue Apron stock; $9.34 IPO, $1 right now)
I remember when these were all over the news because they were being hailed as the the future of bicyclist skulls. And then they disappeared. At the cost of THREE-HUNDRED euros per use, have these actually been adapted in large numbers or is it still a very boutique item?
1. People driving cars have seat belts, multiple air bags, a steel cage, and steel armor. That is all better than any bike helmet.
2. Most bicyclists drive as well. For the vast majority of bicyclists, it's a choice to ride a bike for a trip. (That also means they pay into the road system via fuel taxes, income taxes, etc... just in case that was the next comment.)
3. All professional racing drivers and racing bicyclists wear helmets because they're in a high risk industry and have been thoroughly educated on the value of a helmet given said risk.
And still, I support your questioning of the focus on bike helmets. A bike helmet is literally the last line of defense against injury while riding a bike. First, is good bike education to PREVENT hazardous situations from occurring. This education should instill the value of predictability on the road, communication among other road users, recognizing existing and developing hazardous situations, and always maintaining maximum visibility. Second, this bike education should teach bicyclists how to AVOID imminent hazardous situations via bicycling handling training and reaction preparation. The last layer of protection is injury MITIGATION in the form of gloves, helmets, etc. If you're a sufficiently skilled and experienced bicyclist (ie. have taken a full bicycle education course), chances are that you may never NEED to put your helmet to use, but it's a good layer of safety to have in a country where that vast majority of motorists on the road (1) don't understand the law surrounding bicycling, (2) don't understand how bicyclists move on the road, and (3) may be resentful to bicyclists on the road.
I am actually amenable to this idea in a twisted philosophical way, but the complexities surrounding autonomous vehicles are multi-faceted. In my original post, I basically lambast those who ignore the current status of AI development (replacing it with their imagination of what it could be in the future) and those who presume that driving is "easy" because so many people do it.
Beyond that is the actual financial issue. Let's say we can make a software system that could make decisions on the road at least as well as a 16 y/o driver with 3 months of driving experience. That hypothetical person is legally allowed to drive, right? So why wouldn't a similarly skilled AI? Let's also assume that this AI has similar observational skills (but using LIDAR, RADAR, video, sound, etc.), and has a similar reaction speed.
16 y/o drivers are still fairly dangerous drivers. Take a look here: https://aaafoundation.org/rate...
So, our "16y/o" AI still gets in crashes. Some people still die. But it's WAY BETTER than drunk drivers. Problem solved, right?
Not really. Because now, all of those liability from that property damage and bodily harm is centralized to a few very deep pockets. Right now, if a loved one is killed by an indigent drunk driver, you could TRY to sue him/her for damages, loss of wages, pain and suffering, etc., but you're unlikely to get anything out of the person. But if Waymo/Google/Alphabet are named as defendants in the case, you best believe that that every death will cost millions.
That alone is why companies don't actually expect to release and produce AVs in the mass market until they're not just "better than most humans" (which they're actually relenting as really, really difficult). What they know now is that they can't be released until they're nearly perfect or it just won't be worth the financial risk to the company.
People like to say "everyone's stupid" and thus "if AVs are 10% better than human drivers, it will be worth it". But once you talk to the actual developers and technologists and ignore the futurists, they'll tell you that getting a machine to make decisions even half as good of humans is really, really, really difficult.
We don't give "stupid" people enough credit. The innate base intelligence of someone that doesn't regularly kill others on the road is very difficult to emulate, regardless of how we consider them in relation to the more intelligent members of the species. They don't just follow lines in the road, they adjust to lighting conditions, curvature in the road, they know how people will swerve in advance of potholes. They can quickly decide if someone/thing is about to go into the road or even make subjective judgements on how another vehicle will move on a freeway based on minute experiences in the last 30 seconds.
From a purely decision-based analysis, driving an automobile is extremely complex... still too complex for a computer to measure and judge appropriately to be autonomous. We'll get there... but it won't be quick, cheap, or easy.
Sure, you can paint it as his innate skill bringing in big bucks, but his skill only got him noticed. From hereon out, it's HIM as a person that's being sold for the entertainment of others. Personalities, performers, athletes-- they are all entertainers feeding the non-stop intrigue of ever more scrutinizing masses.
I hope the parents are putting aside significant portions of this kids' earnings for therapy, remedial education, legal protection, and history erasing so that when this all blows over (and it will... this kind of stuff always does), he'll have a safety net to catch him.
While setting up the advertisements, require the poster to agree that "The advertising of my product or service is not restricted by any fair access law such as... blah blah blah. I understand that adherence to any applicable laws regarding... is my responsibility and not that of Facebook."
And that's all that should happen. Facebook shouldn't be fined or have to go to court unless the City of Los Angeles can be sued for "allowing" someone to post a room rental advertisement on a lamp post despite it clearly reading "Mexicans need not apply."
The headline implies that these deliveries are being made in volume and consistently RIGHT NOW. The summary clarified that UPS has PARTNERED with another company and are PLANNING some TEST FLIGHTS.
That is very, very non-commital.
This type of journalism perpetuates tech myths with the massive population that knows enough to recognize shallow tech concepts but with almost no understanding of the actual state of the technology in question.
This kind of journalism is what will convinces people to invest their retirement funds in vaporware.
Between futurist articles making design concepts seem like reality, BS initial coin offerings, and venture-capital backed app services sounding like great investments because of amazing valuations despite no expectation of turning a profit EVER, we are doing a massive disservice to the less-knowledgeable when we exagerate the realities of tech.
I am tempted to go through all the techie and sci-fi uses of the term "Aurora" and make a single record of them all. From spaceship names to project codenames, it seems to be everywhere.
And the female name Kira, Qi'ra, etc.
Every time this topic comes up, there's belly-aching about which time should be the permanent time. Late summer brightness or early summer brightness. Here's the thing-- people will complain at decreasing levels as time goes on. You'll get used to whatever change happens.
I'm part of an ethnic minority and I work in an industry that's traditionally dominated by a majority ethnicity. Were I to be interviewed for a segment on "ethnic minorities in this industry", but for that interview to be cut, I would still judge the entire segment within the context of its goals.
I would like to watch this 60-minutes segment and see if the goals of the segment (presumably to increase the acceptance of women in tech and to improve their treatment within the industry) would benefit or be hindered by Saujani's interview. If Saujani comes off as a firebrand and not a uniter, I wouldn't hold it against 60 minutes to omit her interview.
That is, of course, pure conjecture and that's all we have until we see everything.
You and I can have exactly the same goals of reducing racism in areas of high persistence of racism, but I guarantee my method of inclusion and sharing will consistently do more for our goals than would screaming at people and calling them racists. If you're genuinely goal oriented, choose the method that will most likely result in the achieving of those goals-- even if success isn't seen in your life time.
Looks, I'll be the first in line to trash Facebook for all the things they do wrong. But just the same, I prefer to have an honest discussion about root issues. Facebook didn't tell him mom that vaccinations were bad. Stupid people using Facebook did.
If you don't want to use Facebook because they're not cracking down on anti-vaxxer crap, fine, boycott it. I'm surprised all the flaws about Facebook haven't led you to boycott it until now, in fact. But don't suggest that Facebook is at fault. They're not.
- Pacific Bell didn't call in the bomb threat.
- The US Postal Service didn't send someone anthrax.
- Highway 101 didn't stop you from getting to work on time.
These are all networks being used by people to do harmful (or at the very least, stupid) things. Go after them. Regulate them. Do the hard work and propose how we're supposed to, in the realm of free speech and the right to be wrong, regulate stupid people.
Yes and no. It is USED as a broader term to mean all those things. However, it is deceptive to do so. Marketing departments try to distort existing vocabulary all the time with the intent of attaching current understanding to their very different product.
Artificial Intelligence is one example. The use of the term "ridesharing" by app-based taxi services is another. "Bikeshare and carshare" are short-term bike and car rentals. In fact, the entire "sharing" economy is actually just "short term rentals" or "services provided by an independent contractor".
It's all there to make you think it's something grander, innovative, and more meaningful than it actually is.
But please stop acting like the introduction and saturation of autonomous vehicles is imminent. I swear if I hear another grad student or middle-aged planner with a subscription to Wired exclaim how we need to be ready to change our entire road system because driverless cars are going to change EVERYTHING in the next 6 months, I'm going to scream.
If they're going to succeed, they're going to have to be nearly perfect on the roads that currently exist and be sufficiently affordable to compete with the likes of Uber/Lyft and private vehicle ownership. Anyone saying anything is either looking for investors, website clicks, or book sales.
They're just not there yet. They're not all that close. The closest (Waymo, Cruze) operate in extremely limited areas and are successful thus far by rote memorization, not adaptability.
Automobiles are an operational and infrastructural component. They're not quick to develop. They're not cheap to produce. And they're fraught with massive liability and risk.
Exactly. They could have just called Kevin Smith and asked, "Hey... we got these angry Christians... is this worth it?" to which he could respond, "Look, you know that's a stupid question. You're calling me because I wrote 'Dogma' which fucking killed it and you know it. Read the Wiki."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
300% return on investment on a film that was WIDELY protested due to blasphemy. And then people shut up about it.
Yep, that's why it's an outlier. Reddit has the lowest-value users for advertisers of all social media sites **if you were to consider it a social media site**. Which almost no one does. People don't build and advertise networks of association on Reddit. Use of real names is rare. There are no "followings". Reddit is a discussion board.
See, here's the problem: The purpose of legislation is to make change. If that change is to happen, the legislation must pass votes. To get enough votes, you need to either dominate the House, Senate, and have the presidency in lock-down, OR you have to make friends with your political opponents.
The Democrats control one of the two legislative houses. They do not control the White House. If they want to pass anything, they need to speak the language of the conservatives.
But instead, they let Ocasio-Cortez (who is already a well-known and tainted name on the right) put forth this bill. There is SO MUCH concentrated liberalism in this bill, that I have zero expectation of it making any significant change.
Just look at what the preamble references (because this is what the right will fixate on):
- the cause of climate change (a vast portion of the right disagrees with human-caused climate change)
- wage stagnation (the right is full of corporatists and "temporarily embarrassed millionaires")
- bargaining power of workers (the right hates unions!)
- resources for public sector workers (the right believes there should be fewer public sector workers!)
- 1%ers (who do you think donate the most to the Republican party...)
- the racial wealth divide (they prejudice the right as being racist and assume that bringing up the racial wealth divide will get them to side with the plan?)
- the gender earnings gap (the right wants to control female bodies!! Why do you think they care about a gender earnings gap!?)
- And here's the doozy: "Whereas climate change, pollution, and environmental destruction have exacerbated systemic racial, regional, social, environmental, and economic injustices (referred to in this preamble as ‘‘systemic injustices’’) by disproportionately affecting indigenous communities, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth (referred to in this preamble as ‘‘frontline and vulnerable communities’’)"
Everyone associated with this bill could have saved themselves A LOT of time by just writing "Allhu akbar, let's stop using oil tomorrow," because it would have gotten the exact same response on the right.
And then we don't win. Nobody wins. Nobody gains anything. Nothing changes.
Unless that was the goal. Maybe the Democrats don't actually want the goals of this bill to come to fruition. Maybe they just want to use Ocasio-Cortez as a token idealist that young liberals can look up to as a revolutionary. "If the Democrats have Ocasio-Cortez, then I want to support the Democrats!" And Ocasio-Cortez can take the heat. And all the more moderate Democrats can say, "Look, we're not nutso like crazy-eyes over there. Here's the more reasonable proposal."
This has always been a tongue-in-cheek requirement. They'll post it on their website, on a bulletin board in City Hall, and/or a local newspaper knowing damn well that drunk drivers plan their nights around the postings.
Said drivers, however, are willing to throw on Google Maps/Waze when they stumble into their vehicles after a night out. And Google/Waze will be there to help them crash into someone instead of being arrested.
Manhattan Island: 13.4 miles long
Football Field = 100 playable yards, 120 yards including endzones
13.4 mi. = 23,584 yards
2/3 * 23,584 = 15722 2/3 yards
15,722.6666 / 120 = 131.02
2/3 of the length of Manhattan = ~131 football fields (including endzones)
"The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line."
From mass permanent public shaming for singular statements or 30-year-old acts of indiscretion, people will simply drop out from internet communication if they think earnest honesty, openness, or youthful rebellion will come back to ruin their lives.
Assume that someone deceives you and convinces you to unwittingly install a microphone in your home that they can turn on at any time. They haven't actually turned it on, no conversation was heard/recorded. Is it still officially bugging/eavesdropping?
Who's doing the legal deep dive on this?
"What escapes me is the importance of this revelation. Online polls are about as unscientific and irrelevant as you can get in the polling world."
See, that's where you let your intelligence get the best of you. The intent of polls is to measure the current status of opinion. Polls are USED, however, to suggest to those who prefer not to think critically HOW they should be thinking. As much as people like to assert that they'll make up their own mind, if they have an extreme minority opinion, they tend to change sides.
I'm still gobsmacked at how digital storage has changed. I got my first computer in the mid-1990s. It was someone's hand-me-down 286. It was already old, but I learned everything I could about DOS on it. When I built my first computer PC the summer before college, and I was stunned by the 3.5" form factor.
Then came 2.5" form factor, the various types of slash memory, etc. But SecureDigital... wow. One terabyte on an SD card?
Processor speed, ya, cool. But storage... wow!
This is not entirely false. My wife and I bought a small suitcase record player and an assortment of non-remastered Christmas music albums in November. There's an authenticity in the imperfections that we both value. The wife is still combing through local record shops trying to find some 1940s big band because she grew up watching that era's musicals.
The player also has its own Li-on battery & speakers, serves as a Bluetooth speaker, and can play directly from a USB drive. It's a modern, stow-able record player.
I'm a big fan of minimizing the cost of death on families/loved ones. That people are expected to shell out thousands of dollars in response to someone dying so they can take up room under ground, in a mausoleum, or on someone's shelf seems ineffectual to me. I like the idea of full-body donation like ScienceCare: Upon acceptance, Science Care covers all costs of donation, including cremation, transportation, and filing of the death certificate. Tissue not recovered for research and education is cremated and returned in 3-5 weeks. If you also want to be an organ transplant donor, click here for details.
"Upon acceptance, Science Care covers all costs of donation, including cremation, transportation, and filing of the death certificate. Tissue not recovered for research and education is cremated and returned in 3-5 weeks. If you also want to be an organ transplant donor, click here for details."
As someone who just wants to be useful to others, I can't find a more honorable way to be discarded. If someone wants to memorialize me, stick a plaque on a bench.