Please see my comments below; that pertain HIGHLY to your opinion...
Not only are you too lazy to do your own research into mobile broadband solutions, you are too lazy to make any attempt at a clear reference to some "comments" that might "pertain highly", other than the "see below". Sorry, there is nothing from you below this. The comments above this are all a whine about how poor the band is and how awful those people who listen to the music by using a streaming service are. Ignore the fact that those people are likely the ones who come to see your band perform and pay the probably excessive ticket prices for a cut-rate band, you should insult them for listening. (Cut rate band hires a zero salary consultant for it's networking.)
Right, fuck trying to engage with your fans and post pictures and videos from the road.
You missed the reason why they need 12Gb per day: to stream videos and download music. They're not engaging the fans, they're consuming other people's content.
Fun Fact: People who know how to research get paid more than people who complain on Slashdot that people are using the avenues at their disposal to do thorough research.
Two more fun facts: this guy is getting paid nothing to be this band's consultant, and he's trying to get a lot of people on/. to be HIS consultants for free. And he has the nerve to whine about how bad the music business is financially for him, instead of getting a real job that would pay money.
"What should I do instead of buy my internet service from a bus company?" is a question that he ought to be able to figure out for himself -- if he is anywhere near able to understand the answers to begin with. The band clearly is getting every penny's worth of his salary.
Of course they do, at least anyone who speaks English does. They don't CARE that he is unemployed, or they think that he's doing something more important than being employed. Most of all, they don't think he should be counted in the government statistics about the job markets. None of those changes his employment status, only whether his unemployment is a problem that needs to be solved somehow through government policies.
Everyone who knows him considers him unemployed.
Same as Dad 1. Except because HE cares that he is unemployed, his status is part of the job market metrics. Just as Mom 2's status is part of the market metrics.
Unemployment is hard to measure
And now you're talking about the metrics and not the status itself.
Do you count this as 100% employment? or 50% employment? I count it as 75%.
I count it at 50% "employment" and headed lower. I count it, therefore, as 50% unemployment. But I count it as only 25% underemployed.
It's not just about whether someone is working or not, it's also about whether they want to be working.
Unemployment is about whether someone has a paying job. Whether there is a problem depends on if they want to have one and can't get it.
It is not reasonable to look at a stay-at-home mother or a housewife, for example, as "unemployed", even though they might theoretically be available for employment.
Of course it is reasonable to look at a house spouse as unemployed, because they have no paying job. It is unreasonable to include that person in the employment statistics, which is why referring to those statistics as "unemployment" is wrong.
It is not reasonable to look at someone who retired aged 55 and spends his days on the golf course as "unemployed"
He has no paying job. He is unemployed. His age has nothing to do with it. The 16 year old layabout living in your basement is unemployed if he doesn't have a paying job. Your wife who stays home to do his laundry is unemployed for the same reason.
Look, the problem is that we're trying to mix simple English with a complicated economic indicator. In English, someone either is employed or is unemployed. "Un" == "not". Whether their status is counted in "the economy sucks" metric or not depends on much more than just them being employed or not. Trying to change the meaning of a simple English word to include all the nuances of "how long have you not sought work" and "are you available" and all the other handwaving that politicians use to make the numbers look good for themselves or bad for the other guy is just stupid.
Use a different word that does include all those considerations. Call it "underemployed". Or make up a new word. But that cannot be done because politicians find it useful to be confusing, so they will continue to use the simple word even if it is the wrong one. And media that wants to support those politicians will write headlines with the wrong word. And media who want to unsupport those politicians will write articles about how the statistics lie. And slashdot will have endless arguments trying to change the definition of a pretty simple word for god knows why.
Since when is a bus company in the business of providing mobile data? They aren't. Why are they capping it? Why are you buying it from them in the first place?
For those thousands of dollars, you can get a lot of basic unlimited cellphone lines. Who cares if each member has his own account and his own "unlimited"?
I see T-Mobile has 4 lines for $40 each, and the only "cap" they show is if you go above 32Gb when they de-prioritize. Verizon has "unlimited" for a phone and two devices for $80/mo, with the "cap" that anything above 22Gb is at a lower priority.
I'm wondering, why isn't this person just doing the same thing I am doing: google for cellular services and see what is available? It's a question of how much you want to pay, so we can't tell you what will work because we don't know how skinflint you are.
You start by saying the dictionary definitions of unemployment don't exclude people who are retired or don't want to work. (I would argue that people are not "available" for unemployment if they don't want/need paid work, but I don't think we'll get anywhere in that discussion.)
They are available but unwilling. They can find all sorts of ways to make themselves "unavailable" for specific jobs, but overall they are still marketable and can work. "Available to work" doesn't mean "I rescheduled my tea with the Queen for next week so I can fit you into my calendar today..."
But then you say, "It's also silly (or dishonest) to hide them by using the word "unemployed" incorrectly."
It is. That doesn't mean we should change the meaning of "unemployed", it means we should clearly report the numbers we are using.
But then you go on to act as if these people are "'underemployed'.
I do not refer to housespouses that way. I am pretty clear that I feel that housespouses are unavailable for work and should not be counted in any "employment" statistics. They technically are unemployed because they have no paying job, but not underemployed because they choose to seek none for a reason other than "I can't find any".
I think we would disagree about whether the people who don't want work should be called "unemployed" (I say no).
It is simple English. If you do not have a paying job you are unemployed. A more strict definition adds "and are available to work", but that's what appears in the book and not on most people's tongues. The fact that you don't want to work doesn't mean you aren't available, only that you are unwilling. Every husband who trudges off to the salt mines to support his wife and family is unwilling to work but certainly is available.
And I think we would agree that it would be helpful to report and act on the "underemployed" statistic.
And to be completely honest about the numbers, to use a word that does not have a standard English definition that doesn't match the numbers it is being used to label.
No, I'm unavailable. You can call and leave a message, if you want. I'm going fishing.
If you have time to go fishing, you have time to work. You don't want to work, which is not the same as "unavailable to work". I don't always want to work, either, even though I have a job, so I understand both how you feel and the difference between what you think your situation is and the truth.
Suppose you get back from fishing tomorrow and find out that someone has stolen every penny you had in the bank and your retirement account. Are you "unavailable to work" to make enough money to live on? Or someone left you a phone message offering you a ridiculous amount of money to come work for them half-time. Are you still "unavailable"? (You can assume for the sake of argument that "ridiculous" is defined as "an amount of money that you would not turn down".)
The number that shows up in newspaper headlines is U3. It could be best considered "people looking really hard for work". And thus it provides a decent enough snapshot of unemployment at this particular moment in time.
It provides a "decent enough" picture if you want to present a picture skewed to support whatever current goverment policies are in place.
"Decent enough" doesn't mean "good" or "better", because we have a better number to use: U4 (IIRC). And U5 may be better yet. Neither of those numbers tosses the long term, disenchanted unemployed (and yet still unemployed) off the books to make the government programs look better.
Why not use the better numbers? Because the "better numbers" are going to be worse -- where "better" is more accurate, "worse" is the state of the economy. Using U3 (or just the word "unemployment") instead of U4 or U5 is the lie.
But if you're attempting to look at longer-term trends, the higher "U" numbers become more valuable.
The higher U numbers are longer term measures, but they are a picture of the state of the employment economy TODAY. They're a more honest picture, why not use them? Because using them makes the leadership look worse.
Just one example? President A comes to office, the economy tanks because he makes some bad laws. "Unemployment" skyrockets. Ooooh, bad. He then makes some more bad laws. "Unemployement" suddenly gets a lot better! His bad laws rescued the economy! No, it's just that the unemployment benefits for victims of the first round of bad laws has run out so they are dropped from the reports. But when his opponent runs on a platform of getting rid of all the bad laws, he gets skewered because he obviously wants to destroy jobs. After all, the second set of bad laws weren't bad, they created a lot of jobs. Look at the unemployment numbers!
That's why it is a lie. Politicians don't report the numbers they do because they are an accurate representation of the economy, they use the numbers they can point to as "facts" that make them look good, even if those numbers don't really mean what they are reported as.
The girl that decided she would rather be a hausfrau than a COBOL programmer is not "unemployed".
Yes, actually, she is unemployed. She should not be counted as underemployed for purposes of economic planning, however.
Some people also luck out and can retire early.
Also unemployed. Also not counted for economic planning...
You also have people that can't work.
Using the "and are available to work" definition, no, they are not unemployed. Using the shorter definition, yes, they are. And that might be a bit clearer if you use the term "unemployable" for people who cannot be employed. If you are "unemployable", then it is much clearer that you are, indeed, unemployed.
It's misleading to lump people on disability with the unemployed.
Only if you are trying to mislead people by using the term "unemployed" when you mean underemployed.
Dunno how this translates to the UK.
I think they have retirees, house spouses, and disabled people. I think they have people who train to be COBOL programmers, but I don't know. And they do speak an interesting variant of English, so they do have the word "unemployed."
Hide it by making the statistics to the public.
In the US, you can go to BLS's web site,
There are many things the government tells us in sound bites or headlines, or which become bites or headlines after filtering by the media, which require more research to determine the true meaning. That does not make the sound bite more correct or more informative. The sound bite is designed to convey a limited message with the expectation that the public will not bother going to a website to look up the basis for the bite, and that most of the people who hear the message will do so second hand anyway. "Did you see, the paper said that unemployment was down to 3%!" "Oh, wow, President (insert name here) must be doing a great job!"
It is almost as if the information is hidden in plain sight. You hear one thing from the front page and that is expected to drown out the truth that you can find out after you look it up on your own. What is the old saying? "A lie can circle the planet many times before the truth can get its boots on."
That pretty closely matches the spirit of the original article [summary], which said that unemployment statistics should include everyone who is not currently in a job, including "people who are taking time off... or work at home to look after their family."
Since you quoted me I feel compelled to respond. I said no such thing. I said that the word "unemployed" when used in government employment reports is dishonest. I did not say that the government should be counting all unemployed people in their economic statistics for employment. I suggested the world "underemployed" because that most closely matches the purpose for the statistic -- determining if there is a problem that needs to be addressed in the current employment economy.
Because the "un" in "unemployed" can be connoted by some to imply job loss,
"Un" as a prefix has no such connotation. "Unbuttered toast" does not mean toast that once had butter on it and now does not. "Unleaded gas" similarly. "Unwed mother" does not mean a woman who has a child and was once married. (In fact, it usually refers specifically to someone who has never been married, where "single mother" is more often used to refer to both.) "Un" means "not" and does not imply "was before". Unless you can explain how "unsweetened tea" is produced by putting sweetener into a glass of tea and then somehow removing it.
You are perhaps thinking of "de", as in "decaffeinated coffee" or "deionized water."
the word has often been considered derogatory,
The word is considered derogatory by some not because of "job loss", but of the assumption of "lazy ass doesn't want to work. Anyone can find a job if they just want one enough." That has nothing to do with losing a job, just not having one now.
Especially homemakers,
Homemakers are unemployed, unless they are paid to do the work. Employment means "paid", so "unemployed" would include unpaid work. If your spouse objects to that term, remind it that it is doing the most important work because its pay is in seeing a job well done.
You are confusing "unemployed" with "non-employed"
No, the OP was exactly correct. If you are not employed then you are unemployed. A minor variant of that includes "and are available to work". A retired person does not have a paying job and is available, therefore a retiree is unemployed.
I am retired. I am unavailable for work. You can't even make me go to work.
You don't want to work. That's not the same as unavailable. A student going to school full time is unavailable to work even if he wanted to. A housespouse is not available to work even if he wants to. Their schedules will not permit it reasonably (even if they could squeeze in a job of some kind.) A retired person is available but unwilling. Or they can be willing and prove that retired people are available by being available and getting part or full time jobs.
You probably shouldn't count me.
You are unemployed, why shouldn't you be counted as "unemployed"? I certainly wouldn't count you in any figure used to make decisions about the employment economy, however. That just proves the original point: the term "unemployed" is dishonest when used for those purposes. We all know it, because the half that supports using the word "unemployed" when it makes the current leadership look good becomes the same half that points out that it is a lie when the other side's leadership is in charge and tries using the numbers to their advantage. Everyone knows, it's just that half ignore the details when it is convenient.
I haven't even put pants on - for two days.
There are jobs that don't require the worker to put on pants, so your unwillingness to put them on does not make you unavailable.
I would count both of those as "not available". Most employers would, too, doubly so.
Many retired people take part time, or even full time, jobs, so calling them "not available" is ridiculous. Not wanting to work does not make one "unavailable", only unwilling. The important question is not what employers would call them, however, it is whether their existence should be considered when talking about "doing something" to increase the number of jobs.
The only people who wouldn't are probably trying to sell you gold.
It's even more absurd to call someone retired or taking a sabbatcal as unemployed.
Someone who is retired does not have a paying job and is available to work. That meets the definition of unemployed, and it is not absurd to call him that.
Someone on a sabbatical is currently employed, so I agree that counting him as unemployed is absurd.
Many 16 year olds are also not employed but no one rational would they should be part of unemployment figures.
Yes, many 16 year-olds are unemployed, as you say -- "not employed" -- but many of them are also not available for employment. That leaves them out of the second, book definition of unemployed. Whether they should be counted in the government employment numbers depends on whether they are available to be employed, but they should be counted if they are available to work.
Any abstraction is going to hide information, does it really make sense to count someone who took early retirement, or is doing full time childcare as unemployed?
Yes, because they are unemployed.
The common definition of "unemployed" is "not employed". The first online dictionary entry that google returned says "person without a paid job but available to work." Neither one includes any mention of "retired" or "wants to work".
The "weird ideology" here is called "the English language".
Now, the politicians in power want to make the unemployment numbers look lower than "unemployed" would, so they include "seeking work" as part of the measurement. Every administration in the US that has wanted to make themselves look proactive towards job creation has relied on the modified definition.
However, the answer to "does it make sense" when applied to a number that is being used to measure the employment economy is actually "no", because it is silly to count housespouses, retired, or those who are no longer seeking employment as "unemployed" for the sake of how much money to invest in creating new jobs.
It's also silly (or dishonest) to hide them by using the word "unemployed" incorrectly. There is a better word: "underemployed". People who are employed less than they want to be. That would naturally include part time workers who want to work full time, and any government action to try to increase the number of jobs should include consideration of those folks, too.
Given the way the term "unemployed" is deliberately misused, it is not a "ideology" to point that fact out occasionally. It is a valid reminder of what the government is actually telling us, and not telling us.
Likewise, I can't lie to someone by telling them that the item they're buying is discounted from a higher price
The former problem is hard to solve on your own while the latter is trivial. Simply ignore any useless claims of what the higher price is or was.
You cannot ignore the statement that the components are brand new latest hardware because that is a significant part of the description of what you are physically buying. "Regular price" is a useless piece of data because it reflects a price you aren't going to be paying anyway, and doesn't actually describe the product you are getting. Why do you care if the widget you are buying was sold for $1 or $10,000 yesterday, if the price you are willing to pay today is $0.50 and that's what they are going to charge you?
But, you say, a $10,000 widget for fifty cents is a really great bargain and I'll buy it just to resell. I can produce widgets on my 3d printer all day and put a price of $10,000 on them. I may not sell any, but that's the price. Then I'll discount them to $10 and they're suddenly a "really great bargain"?
Bottom line: the "price" on an item is what the seller says it is worth. The price you pay is what you decide it is worth.
No, charging for a Prime Membership makes "'free' two day delivery" a fraud.
Free two day delivery is a fraud all by itself since it usually isn't two days, but that option is what you buy when you pay for Prime membership. What you are saying is like claiming that getting access to the United red carpet club after paying for a club membership is a fraud. It's what you are paying for.
The fraud is that you're paying for "free" two day shipping as part of the prime membership, and then being charged more for the item when you use two day instead of slow boat.
At least they're not quite as blatant as Walmart, who advertise free shipping, but offer you a $5 discount if you pick it up yourself.
I'm sorry, but I think it is just as blatant for Amazon to advertise "free two day shipping" on a product, but then give an effective 50% discount if you use "no rush" shipping. That's after you've paid for a Prime membership to get the "free" two day shipping.
(Yes, a $10 item had "free two day", but they'd do free "no rush" shipping and throw in a $5 certificate for some other product.)
Here's a good rule, too: don't buy something if you think the price you are asked to pay is too high.
Under that rule, it doesn't matter what "list" or "regular" price a company puts on a product, it only matters what price they are asking you to pay right now. That means you might buy a fridge from A that was displayed as "regular price: $10,000, now only $1000" instead of from B that says "regular price: $3000, now only $1500".
What the FTC actually needs to look into is Amazon's practice of discounting the price of an item if the buyer chooses "no hurry" shipping. That makes the "free two day delivery" that they sell as part of Prime membership a fraud. If it is cheaper to buy with "no hurry" shipping than with "free" shipping, the free shipping isn't.
That's much more criminal than showing a meaningless "regular price". People aren't paying the "regular price", but they have already paid $99 for a Prime membership that gets them free shipping that Amazon isn't delivering.
For a server-based approach to work, you'd have, in the best case (read "not periodic HTTP polling"), tens of milliseconds to deliver the data to the server, tens of milliseconds to deliver the data back, plus hundreds of milliseconds (or more) for the server to look through all the cars in a list of geographically nearby vehicles
The internet is not magic. A connection from one AV asking a server for data does not magically tell the server about all the other AV in the area. The server doesn't have to look for other cars to tell things to; if they want the data, they'll ask for it just like the first one did.
It would likely take only single-digit milliseconds for direct car-to-car communication.
That's true, but we're not talking about car-to-car, we are talking about Vehicle to Anywhere. Anywhere is a big place -- much bigger than "the car next to me." Of course there will be data links for that. This does not mean there is no possible other external data that would be useful. And even that "car to car" data is external data that some folks are trying to claim would not be used because it would make the AV not A.
It is a fast lane for a specific company, on the Internet, for data relevant to AVs. It's that boldfaced part that you seem to be deliberately ignoring here.
I am hardly ignoring it when I am the one who has to keep trying to get you to understand that the fast lane is NOT the car to cell tower wireless connection but from the company providing the data. On the internet. You don't really think that an AV seeking a specific kind of data is going to multicast a request instead of having a connection open to a specific host, do you?
because the car company would almost certainly pay for permanent network access for their cars as they do now (and thus would be that ISP's customer)
And Comcast's customer may very well be the source of that data.
By contrast, what you're describing requires A. timing-critical (latency-sensitive) communication to be required between an autonomous vehicle and other, relatively distant autonomous vehicles
I am requiring nothing, and certainly nothing from AV to AV.
By any meaningful definition, traffic data is not real-time.
By the definition of "this is a picture of what is happening now", yes, it indeed is "real time". As opposed to "leading tonight's newscast, a crash on highway..."
But the semantics of "real time" is moot, since we haven't gotten past the point of admitting that there might be some data that an AV could use from "external sources" that would make the operation safer. You don't think there can be; I am willing to wait for the future to determine that.
As for "radar stations", I thought my comment about the candy bar in my pocket might be a clue that "radar" is not as common as you'd like to make us think.
A single car obtaining traffic data in anything approaching real time would likely bring the cellular network utterly to its knees,
Good to know. I'll stop using the apps that show me traffic data on my phone, then, since they use the same cell network that the car getting data would destroy.
Stop fixating on the one example and use it to open your mind to other possibilities.
In what country?
I'm sorry, I just gave you something else to fixate on instead of the topic at hand. My mistake.
Slashdot Mirror
Please see my comments below; that pertain HIGHLY to your opinion...
Not only are you too lazy to do your own research into mobile broadband solutions, you are too lazy to make any attempt at a clear reference to some "comments" that might "pertain highly", other than the "see below". Sorry, there is nothing from you below this. The comments above this are all a whine about how poor the band is and how awful those people who listen to the music by using a streaming service are. Ignore the fact that those people are likely the ones who come to see your band perform and pay the probably excessive ticket prices for a cut-rate band, you should insult them for listening. (Cut rate band hires a zero salary consultant for it's networking.)
Right, fuck trying to engage with your fans and post pictures and videos from the road.
You missed the reason why they need 12Gb per day: to stream videos and download music. They're not engaging the fans, they're consuming other people's content.
Fun Fact: People who know how to research get paid more than people who complain on Slashdot that people are using the avenues at their disposal to do thorough research.
Two more fun facts: this guy is getting paid nothing to be this band's consultant, and he's trying to get a lot of people on /. to be HIS consultants for free. And he has the nerve to whine about how bad the music business is financially for him, instead of getting a real job that would pay money.
"What should I do instead of buy my internet service from a bus company?" is a question that he ought to be able to figure out for himself -- if he is anywhere near able to understand the answers to begin with. The band clearly is getting every penny's worth of his salary.
Nobody considers him unemployed.
Of course they do, at least anyone who speaks English does. They don't CARE that he is unemployed, or they think that he's doing something more important than being employed. Most of all, they don't think he should be counted in the government statistics about the job markets. None of those changes his employment status, only whether his unemployment is a problem that needs to be solved somehow through government policies.
Everyone who knows him considers him unemployed.
Same as Dad 1. Except because HE cares that he is unemployed, his status is part of the job market metrics. Just as Mom 2's status is part of the market metrics.
Unemployment is hard to measure
And now you're talking about the metrics and not the status itself.
Do you count this as 100% employment? or 50% employment? I count it as 75%.
I count it at 50% "employment" and headed lower. I count it, therefore, as 50% unemployment. But I count it as only 25% underemployed.
It's not just about whether someone is working or not, it's also about whether they want to be working.
Unemployment is about whether someone has a paying job. Whether there is a problem depends on if they want to have one and can't get it.
It is not reasonable to look at a stay-at-home mother or a housewife, for example, as "unemployed", even though they might theoretically be available for employment.
Of course it is reasonable to look at a house spouse as unemployed, because they have no paying job. It is unreasonable to include that person in the employment statistics, which is why referring to those statistics as "unemployment" is wrong.
It is not reasonable to look at someone who retired aged 55 and spends his days on the golf course as "unemployed"
He has no paying job. He is unemployed. His age has nothing to do with it. The 16 year old layabout living in your basement is unemployed if he doesn't have a paying job. Your wife who stays home to do his laundry is unemployed for the same reason.
Look, the problem is that we're trying to mix simple English with a complicated economic indicator. In English, someone either is employed or is unemployed. "Un" == "not". Whether their status is counted in "the economy sucks" metric or not depends on much more than just them being employed or not. Trying to change the meaning of a simple English word to include all the nuances of "how long have you not sought work" and "are you available" and all the other handwaving that politicians use to make the numbers look good for themselves or bad for the other guy is just stupid.
Use a different word that does include all those considerations. Call it "underemployed". Or make up a new word. But that cannot be done because politicians find it useful to be confusing, so they will continue to use the simple word even if it is the wrong one. And media that wants to support those politicians will write headlines with the wrong word. And media who want to unsupport those politicians will write articles about how the statistics lie. And slashdot will have endless arguments trying to change the definition of a pretty simple word for god knows why.
If that bus company doesn't offer it,
Since when is a bus company in the business of providing mobile data? They aren't. Why are they capping it? Why are you buying it from them in the first place?
For those thousands of dollars, you can get a lot of basic unlimited cellphone lines. Who cares if each member has his own account and his own "unlimited"?
I see T-Mobile has 4 lines for $40 each, and the only "cap" they show is if you go above 32Gb when they de-prioritize. Verizon has "unlimited" for a phone and two devices for $80/mo, with the "cap" that anything above 22Gb is at a lower priority.
I'm wondering, why isn't this person just doing the same thing I am doing: google for cellular services and see what is available? It's a question of how much you want to pay, so we can't tell you what will work because we don't know how skinflint you are.
You start by saying the dictionary definitions of unemployment don't exclude people who are retired or don't want to work. (I would argue that people are not "available" for unemployment if they don't want/need paid work, but I don't think we'll get anywhere in that discussion.)
They are available but unwilling. They can find all sorts of ways to make themselves "unavailable" for specific jobs, but overall they are still marketable and can work. "Available to work" doesn't mean "I rescheduled my tea with the Queen for next week so I can fit you into my calendar today..."
But then you say, "It's also silly (or dishonest) to hide them by using the word "unemployed" incorrectly."
It is. That doesn't mean we should change the meaning of "unemployed", it means we should clearly report the numbers we are using.
But then you go on to act as if these people are "'underemployed'.
I do not refer to housespouses that way. I am pretty clear that I feel that housespouses are unavailable for work and should not be counted in any "employment" statistics. They technically are unemployed because they have no paying job, but not underemployed because they choose to seek none for a reason other than "I can't find any".
I think we would disagree about whether the people who don't want work should be called "unemployed" (I say no).
It is simple English. If you do not have a paying job you are unemployed. A more strict definition adds "and are available to work", but that's what appears in the book and not on most people's tongues. The fact that you don't want to work doesn't mean you aren't available, only that you are unwilling. Every husband who trudges off to the salt mines to support his wife and family is unwilling to work but certainly is available.
And I think we would agree that it would be helpful to report and act on the "underemployed" statistic.
And to be completely honest about the numbers, to use a word that does not have a standard English definition that doesn't match the numbers it is being used to label.
No, I'm unavailable. You can call and leave a message, if you want. I'm going fishing.
If you have time to go fishing, you have time to work. You don't want to work, which is not the same as "unavailable to work". I don't always want to work, either, even though I have a job, so I understand both how you feel and the difference between what you think your situation is and the truth.
Suppose you get back from fishing tomorrow and find out that someone has stolen every penny you had in the bank and your retirement account. Are you "unavailable to work" to make enough money to live on? Or someone left you a phone message offering you a ridiculous amount of money to come work for them half-time. Are you still "unavailable"? (You can assume for the sake of argument that "ridiculous" is defined as "an amount of money that you would not turn down".)
The number that shows up in newspaper headlines is U3. It could be best considered "people looking really hard for work". And thus it provides a decent enough snapshot of unemployment at this particular moment in time.
It provides a "decent enough" picture if you want to present a picture skewed to support whatever current goverment policies are in place.
"Decent enough" doesn't mean "good" or "better", because we have a better number to use: U4 (IIRC). And U5 may be better yet. Neither of those numbers tosses the long term, disenchanted unemployed (and yet still unemployed) off the books to make the government programs look better.
Why not use the better numbers? Because the "better numbers" are going to be worse -- where "better" is more accurate, "worse" is the state of the economy. Using U3 (or just the word "unemployment") instead of U4 or U5 is the lie.
But if you're attempting to look at longer-term trends, the higher "U" numbers become more valuable.
The higher U numbers are longer term measures, but they are a picture of the state of the employment economy TODAY. They're a more honest picture, why not use them? Because using them makes the leadership look worse.
Just one example? President A comes to office, the economy tanks because he makes some bad laws. "Unemployment" skyrockets. Ooooh, bad. He then makes some more bad laws. "Unemployement" suddenly gets a lot better! His bad laws rescued the economy! No, it's just that the unemployment benefits for victims of the first round of bad laws has run out so they are dropped from the reports. But when his opponent runs on a platform of getting rid of all the bad laws, he gets skewered because he obviously wants to destroy jobs. After all, the second set of bad laws weren't bad, they created a lot of jobs. Look at the unemployment numbers!
That's why it is a lie. Politicians don't report the numbers they do because they are an accurate representation of the economy, they use the numbers they can point to as "facts" that make them look good, even if those numbers don't really mean what they are reported as.
The girl that decided she would rather be a hausfrau than a COBOL programmer is not "unemployed".
Yes, actually, she is unemployed. She should not be counted as underemployed for purposes of economic planning, however.
Some people also luck out and can retire early.
Also unemployed. Also not counted for economic planning...
You also have people that can't work.
Using the "and are available to work" definition, no, they are not unemployed. Using the shorter definition, yes, they are. And that might be a bit clearer if you use the term "unemployable" for people who cannot be employed. If you are "unemployable", then it is much clearer that you are, indeed, unemployed.
It's misleading to lump people on disability with the unemployed.
Only if you are trying to mislead people by using the term "unemployed" when you mean underemployed.
Dunno how this translates to the UK.
I think they have retirees, house spouses, and disabled people. I think they have people who train to be COBOL programmers, but I don't know. And they do speak an interesting variant of English, so they do have the word "unemployed."
Hide it by making the statistics to the public. In the US, you can go to BLS's web site,
There are many things the government tells us in sound bites or headlines, or which become bites or headlines after filtering by the media, which require more research to determine the true meaning. That does not make the sound bite more correct or more informative. The sound bite is designed to convey a limited message with the expectation that the public will not bother going to a website to look up the basis for the bite, and that most of the people who hear the message will do so second hand anyway. "Did you see, the paper said that unemployment was down to 3%!" "Oh, wow, President (insert name here) must be doing a great job!"
It is almost as if the information is hidden in plain sight. You hear one thing from the front page and that is expected to drown out the truth that you can find out after you look it up on your own. What is the old saying? "A lie can circle the planet many times before the truth can get its boots on."
That pretty closely matches the spirit of the original article [summary], which said that unemployment statistics should include everyone who is not currently in a job, including "people who are taking time off ... or work at home to look after their family."
Since you quoted me I feel compelled to respond. I said no such thing. I said that the word "unemployed" when used in government employment reports is dishonest. I did not say that the government should be counting all unemployed people in their economic statistics for employment. I suggested the world "underemployed" because that most closely matches the purpose for the statistic -- determining if there is a problem that needs to be addressed in the current employment economy.
Because the "un" in "unemployed" can be connoted by some to imply job loss,
"Un" as a prefix has no such connotation. "Unbuttered toast" does not mean toast that once had butter on it and now does not. "Unleaded gas" similarly. "Unwed mother" does not mean a woman who has a child and was once married. (In fact, it usually refers specifically to someone who has never been married, where "single mother" is more often used to refer to both.) "Un" means "not" and does not imply "was before". Unless you can explain how "unsweetened tea" is produced by putting sweetener into a glass of tea and then somehow removing it.
You are perhaps thinking of "de", as in "decaffeinated coffee" or "deionized water."
the word has often been considered derogatory,
The word is considered derogatory by some not because of "job loss", but of the assumption of "lazy ass doesn't want to work. Anyone can find a job if they just want one enough." That has nothing to do with losing a job, just not having one now.
Especially homemakers,
Homemakers are unemployed, unless they are paid to do the work. Employment means "paid", so "unemployed" would include unpaid work. If your spouse objects to that term, remind it that it is doing the most important work because its pay is in seeing a job well done.
You are confusing "unemployed" with "non-employed"
No, the OP was exactly correct. If you are not employed then you are unemployed. A minor variant of that includes "and are available to work". A retired person does not have a paying job and is available, therefore a retiree is unemployed.
I am retired. I am unavailable for work. You can't even make me go to work.
You don't want to work. That's not the same as unavailable. A student going to school full time is unavailable to work even if he wanted to. A housespouse is not available to work even if he wants to. Their schedules will not permit it reasonably (even if they could squeeze in a job of some kind.) A retired person is available but unwilling. Or they can be willing and prove that retired people are available by being available and getting part or full time jobs.
You probably shouldn't count me.
You are unemployed, why shouldn't you be counted as "unemployed"? I certainly wouldn't count you in any figure used to make decisions about the employment economy, however. That just proves the original point: the term "unemployed" is dishonest when used for those purposes. We all know it, because the half that supports using the word "unemployed" when it makes the current leadership look good becomes the same half that points out that it is a lie when the other side's leadership is in charge and tries using the numbers to their advantage. Everyone knows, it's just that half ignore the details when it is convenient.
I haven't even put pants on - for two days.
There are jobs that don't require the worker to put on pants, so your unwillingness to put them on does not make you unavailable.
I would count both of those as "not available". Most employers would, too, doubly so.
Many retired people take part time, or even full time, jobs, so calling them "not available" is ridiculous. Not wanting to work does not make one "unavailable", only unwilling. The important question is not what employers would call them, however, it is whether their existence should be considered when talking about "doing something" to increase the number of jobs.
The only people who wouldn't are probably trying to sell you gold.
Or who speak English.
It's even more absurd to call someone retired or taking a sabbatcal as unemployed.
Someone who is retired does not have a paying job and is available to work. That meets the definition of unemployed, and it is not absurd to call him that.
Someone on a sabbatical is currently employed, so I agree that counting him as unemployed is absurd.
Many 16 year olds are also not employed but no one rational would they should be part of unemployment figures.
Yes, many 16 year-olds are unemployed, as you say -- "not employed" -- but many of them are also not available for employment. That leaves them out of the second, book definition of unemployed. Whether they should be counted in the government employment numbers depends on whether they are available to be employed, but they should be counted if they are available to work.
Any abstraction is going to hide information, does it really make sense to count someone who took early retirement, or is doing full time childcare as unemployed?
Yes, because they are unemployed. The common definition of "unemployed" is "not employed". The first online dictionary entry that google returned says "person without a paid job but available to work." Neither one includes any mention of "retired" or "wants to work".
The "weird ideology" here is called "the English language".
Now, the politicians in power want to make the unemployment numbers look lower than "unemployed" would, so they include "seeking work" as part of the measurement. Every administration in the US that has wanted to make themselves look proactive towards job creation has relied on the modified definition.
However, the answer to "does it make sense" when applied to a number that is being used to measure the employment economy is actually "no", because it is silly to count housespouses, retired, or those who are no longer seeking employment as "unemployed" for the sake of how much money to invest in creating new jobs.
It's also silly (or dishonest) to hide them by using the word "unemployed" incorrectly. There is a better word: "underemployed". People who are employed less than they want to be. That would naturally include part time workers who want to work full time, and any government action to try to increase the number of jobs should include consideration of those folks, too.
Given the way the term "unemployed" is deliberately misused, it is not a "ideology" to point that fact out occasionally. It is a valid reminder of what the government is actually telling us, and not telling us.
Likewise, I can't lie to someone by telling them that the item they're buying is discounted from a higher price
The former problem is hard to solve on your own while the latter is trivial. Simply ignore any useless claims of what the higher price is or was.
You cannot ignore the statement that the components are brand new latest hardware because that is a significant part of the description of what you are physically buying. "Regular price" is a useless piece of data because it reflects a price you aren't going to be paying anyway, and doesn't actually describe the product you are getting. Why do you care if the widget you are buying was sold for $1 or $10,000 yesterday, if the price you are willing to pay today is $0.50 and that's what they are going to charge you?
But, you say, a $10,000 widget for fifty cents is a really great bargain and I'll buy it just to resell. I can produce widgets on my 3d printer all day and put a price of $10,000 on them. I may not sell any, but that's the price. Then I'll discount them to $10 and they're suddenly a "really great bargain"?
Bottom line: the "price" on an item is what the seller says it is worth. The price you pay is what you decide it is worth.
No, charging for a Prime Membership makes "'free' two day delivery" a fraud.
Free two day delivery is a fraud all by itself since it usually isn't two days, but that option is what you buy when you pay for Prime membership. What you are saying is like claiming that getting access to the United red carpet club after paying for a club membership is a fraud. It's what you are paying for.
The fraud is that you're paying for "free" two day shipping as part of the prime membership, and then being charged more for the item when you use two day instead of slow boat.
At least they're not quite as blatant as Walmart, who advertise free shipping, but offer you a $5 discount if you pick it up yourself.
I'm sorry, but I think it is just as blatant for Amazon to advertise "free two day shipping" on a product, but then give an effective 50% discount if you use "no rush" shipping. That's after you've paid for a Prime membership to get the "free" two day shipping.
(Yes, a $10 item had "free two day", but they'd do free "no rush" shipping and throw in a $5 certificate for some other product.)
I live by the rule: Never buy discounted Items.
Here's a good rule, too: don't buy something if you think the price you are asked to pay is too high.
Under that rule, it doesn't matter what "list" or "regular" price a company puts on a product, it only matters what price they are asking you to pay right now. That means you might buy a fridge from A that was displayed as "regular price: $10,000, now only $1000" instead of from B that says "regular price: $3000, now only $1500".
What the FTC actually needs to look into is Amazon's practice of discounting the price of an item if the buyer chooses "no hurry" shipping. That makes the "free two day delivery" that they sell as part of Prime membership a fraud. If it is cheaper to buy with "no hurry" shipping than with "free" shipping, the free shipping isn't. That's much more criminal than showing a meaningless "regular price". People aren't paying the "regular price", but they have already paid $99 for a Prime membership that gets them free shipping that Amazon isn't delivering.
For a server-based approach to work, you'd have, in the best case (read "not periodic HTTP polling"), tens of milliseconds to deliver the data to the server, tens of milliseconds to deliver the data back, plus hundreds of milliseconds (or more) for the server to look through all the cars in a list of geographically nearby vehicles
The internet is not magic. A connection from one AV asking a server for data does not magically tell the server about all the other AV in the area. The server doesn't have to look for other cars to tell things to; if they want the data, they'll ask for it just like the first one did.
It would likely take only single-digit milliseconds for direct car-to-car communication.
That's true, but we're not talking about car-to-car, we are talking about Vehicle to Anywhere. Anywhere is a big place -- much bigger than "the car next to me." Of course there will be data links for that. This does not mean there is no possible other external data that would be useful. And even that "car to car" data is external data that some folks are trying to claim would not be used because it would make the AV not A.
It is a fast lane for a specific company, on the Internet, for data relevant to AVs. It's that boldfaced part that you seem to be deliberately ignoring here.
I am hardly ignoring it when I am the one who has to keep trying to get you to understand that the fast lane is NOT the car to cell tower wireless connection but from the company providing the data. On the internet. You don't really think that an AV seeking a specific kind of data is going to multicast a request instead of having a connection open to a specific host, do you?
because the car company would almost certainly pay for permanent network access for their cars as they do now (and thus would be that ISP's customer)
And Comcast's customer may very well be the source of that data.
By contrast, what you're describing requires A. timing-critical (latency-sensitive) communication to be required between an autonomous vehicle and other, relatively distant autonomous vehicles
I am requiring nothing, and certainly nothing from AV to AV.
The argument is whether all driving computations will be done on-board.
No, the argument is whether those driving computations will use any data from "external sources". Data that might come from, gasp, the Internet.
By any meaningful definition, traffic data is not real-time.
By the definition of "this is a picture of what is happening now", yes, it indeed is "real time". As opposed to "leading tonight's newscast, a crash on highway ..."
But the semantics of "real time" is moot, since we haven't gotten past the point of admitting that there might be some data that an AV could use from "external sources" that would make the operation safer. You don't think there can be; I am willing to wait for the future to determine that.
As for "radar stations", I thought my comment about the candy bar in my pocket might be a clue that "radar" is not as common as you'd like to make us think.
A single car obtaining traffic data in anything approaching real time would likely bring the cellular network utterly to its knees,
Good to know. I'll stop using the apps that show me traffic data on my phone, then, since they use the same cell network that the car getting data would destroy.
Stop fixating on the one example and use it to open your mind to other possibilities.
In what country?
I'm sorry, I just gave you something else to fixate on instead of the topic at hand. My mistake.