We could do it in the US, but we've got evangelical so-called "christians" who refuse to give their kids the vaccine, because Jesus told them sex is bad, m'kay?
How come women (read: girls in high school) are allowed to choose to have an abortion but not allowed to choose to have or not have this vaccine? How does forcing them to get the vaccine support their control over their own bodies? Because, you know, there was a small court case about the government telling women what they could/could not do with their bodies (read: abortions). But, you might have missed it.
Still, since you probably missed that bit, it explains why you think it is OK for the government to force girls to get HPV vaccines.
These are the same people who will enthusiastically vote for child molesters and men who admit to committing sexual assault because their helmet-haired preachers have told them they are "chosen".
I know you must be upset about Senator Cory Booker, as am I, since it has come to light that he sexually assaulted a teenage girl when he was in high school (by his own written admission, no less). I trust that the 56% of New Jersians who voted for him will find someone suitable to replace him when his seat comes up in 2020. I also trust that his presidential prospects are dead in the water.
... with the level of corruption in my country? Hell no.
What's frustrating is the folks demanding a "free market" solution to the problem.
As you point out, there are times the free market can be slow. However, absent some external distortion (e.g., the tax code, monopoly, burdensome/unfair regulation, etc.) the free market is by far the most effective and efficient (from a utilization of capital perspective) way to achieve an optimal solution.
In the same way that the scientific method is inherently unbiased, the free market is inherently free of corruption. Now, since people manage to bias the scientific method, you can bet that they also manage to corrupt the free market. But the equilibrium of the system tends away from that, unlike government which tends toward an equilibrium of corruption.
I think it is a realistic market model to expect that some universities wish to realize the high student payments that can be extracted by the richest families, and thus many universities are competing to be "highly selective"
I teach at a public university that is not selective (or cannot be selective, not sure). In any event, here are their recruiting priorities (and they are open about this): international graduate students, out of state graduate students, other international and out of state students, and (finally) in state students.
I will let you guess why those are the recruiting priorities.
I can buy a 65" TV for $400 that's affordable without debt even on $12 bucks an hour. That SUV is used and built on a truck platform. It may guzzle gas but it's cheaper design makes it much more reliable. When you buy a vehicle even poor folks consider total ROI (though most wouldn't know it's called ROI).
Your cognitive dissonance is just astounding. In one breath you shriek about paycheck to paycheck, with dubious figures to accompany it, you have in other discussions cited things like Medical debt as a reason for people living paycheck to paycheck and then in the next breath argue that things like luxury electronics and luxury vehicles (yes, SUVs are luxury vehicles when you consider that the median transaction price for a passenger car is in the $25,000 range, while the median transaction price for an SUV is in the $35,000 and that the SUV is more expensive to operate, maintain, and insure) are affordable on the equivalent of $24,000/year.
Seriously, just accept that there are some people out there with legitimate financial problems but you also need to accept the reality that there are plenty of people whose financial hardships are a clear and direct result of their own conscious choice to pursue consumerism as a lifestyle.
At least 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. That's not middle class and it's certainly not "no longer at risk of poverty".
You trot out this sort of statistic every time. A quick look at some actual facts will show you that the issue is more complex than that. Also, it would help if you stuck to a consistent set of figures. Here is you a few days ago claiming the number is 78% percent.
Yes, I know that "at least 60%" can be considered to cover 78% as well, but the fact that you chose the stronger number the fist time a few days ago and then softened your statement this time makes me think you don't actually believe the number or they are bogus.
The bottom line, is we can't both be in an era where most people are in danger of falling into poverty at any moment and at the same time be in an era where most people have more discretionary income than at any time in history. Given the people I know and the choices I see them make, I am going to stick with: people (at least in the US) who live pay check to pay check mostly live that way because they fully embrace consumerism as a way of life.
Kavanaugh is a Bush-appointed judge. He doesn't give two shits about the constitution.
You say that in a way that makes it seem like judges appointed by Democrat presidents care about the constitution in a measurably better way. They don't. I won't bother repeating myself and instead just link to an earlier comment comment I made about the eminent domain case that SCOTUS decided a few years ago.
In the event you don't feel like reading, the summary is: the liberal justices on the court (along with Kennedy as the swing vote) ruled that private property could be seized from its private owner and given to another private entity because redevelopment of property in way that increases the tax base counts as a "public good". Think about that. Under the precedent of that decision, the government can seize your private property and give it to someone else if that someone else can make a case for better use of the property. It does not have to be to create a park or build a road. It can be any use somehow might benefit the public. In the case that SCOTUS decided the actual redevelopment plan fell through and so the original owner was left without his property and the local citizens were left without their promised improvements.
Asians are more likely to enroll at college, and more likely to succeed there.
Asians are a minority in the US and other western countries, and yet they are highly successful.
... these other minority groups which are failing to grasp them - in many cases because their culture and attitude is self destructive.
I think if you break it down further, like Chinese, Japanese and Korean compared to Indian and Indonesian, for example, there is even a clear delineation where some sub-groups do better than other sub-groups within the larger Asian ethnic bloc.
The exact same thing exists within the Hispanic ethnic bloc between, say, Cubans and Mexicans.
For Gowda, it was the fact that Google Maps is a global, commercial product and did not capture local detail. Like the old banyan tree that was a major landmark in his hometown Hassan or public benches just outside the town where pedestrians could stop to catch a break or fire catchment areas in Bellandur lake in Bengaluru, India.
"It was fascinating to add little but important details of my town to open maps," says Gowda who was introduced in 2013 to OSM or OpenStreetMap, a global community of mappers formed as a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world in 2004. Since then he has been an active contributor to OpenStreetMap and has conducted many workshops in colleges and institutes to induct more people in the community. Gowda has made 8500 edits in the OpenStreetMap, mainly covering areas in Bengaluru, Hassan and Hyderabad.
This sounds like a really neat idea. However, I quit contributing to Wikipedia because of the nonsense that comes with it. It was very frustrating to see the constant edit wars on even semi-controversial content. To say nothing of really controversial pages. Or of the people who think they are "experts" on some topic trying to "correct" people who are actual experts.
Then there is legion of "we must add every detail of everything, no matter how minor" pitted against the legion "everything in Wikipedia must meet some arbitrary high standard of significance." And of course, everyone has to put up with the admins (I won't even get into everything that can go wrong there).
I can't help but think that while this will in the macro sense be a good thing for society and for democratizing information, part of the cost will be that you have to actually investigate the history of every thing that actually matters to you. I can also see how over time it will become increasingly difficult for people who want to make just one or two small contributions when there are others with nothing better to do than to "police" their favorite content full time.
It would be interesting to see what the middle east is going to do when the buried treasure that's kept them afloat so long is worth about the same as the rocks that bury it.
I have said this before in a similar discussion, but it bears repeating. Venezuela is probably a solid indicator of what is in store for the Middle East if the petroleum market crashes hard.
... as well as the providing of credit monitoring services...
Credit monitoring is a joke. By the time you get the alert the damage may have already been done. Better to just freeze your credit. In fact, as of this past week it is now free nationwide. It was previously regulated by states and some were free while others allowed the credit bureaus to charge a small fee. In any event, having credit monitoring without freezing your credit is like having a burglar alarm but not bothering to lock the doors and windows. Better to just lock up.
True, according to the Constitution. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court believes otherwise.
True. But did you happen to look at which justices were in the majority on that decision? "Stevens, joined by Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer" (from the same Wikipedia article you linked)
Even better was the executive order President George W. Bush issued the year after the ruling, including this text:
...for the purpose of benefiting the general public and not merely for the purpose of advancing the economic interest of private parties to be given ownership or use of the property taken.
Granted, as noted in the Wikipedia article, the federal government does not use eminent domain nearly as much as state and local governments. Still, it is interesting since Bush is frequently accused being a corporatist, for the rich, and having no respect for the constitution.
Better still was the legislation which was introduced, the Protection of Homes, Small Businesses, and Private Property Act of 2005, co-sponsored by 30 (yes, 30) Republicans (you know, the party of the rich) and 2 (yes, only 2) Democrats (you know, the party of the little guy). Sadly, it never made it out of committee while the Republicans had the majority and it appears the Democrats had no interest in fixing this when they took the majority.
It just goes to show. Republicans have their occasional good day and Democrats have their occasional bad day.
It's amazing how everything that doesn't agree with conservative political opinions somehow equals liberal bias.
It cuts both ways.
Progressives: This woman is a survivor of sexual assault! She must be allowed to speak! All women must be believed!
Republicans: OK. Let her come testify. How is next week? Her place or ours?
Progressives: How dare you demand that she speak!
Republicans: ??
Progressives: See?!?!? They don't believe her?
Republicans: What about the supposed witnesses that can't back up the claims (even though the accuser said they would back up the claim) and what about the dozens of women who support the accused?
Progressives: Ignore them! All women must be believed! What we meant to say was that all women must believed so long as what they say brings harm to men; women who say things that don't harm men or who even suggest that men should be allowed to defend themselves when accused are not to be believed because they are really just tools of the patriarchy! (but we didn't say that the first time because it doesn't have the same ring to it and protesters would have a hard time fitting all onto a sign.)
Republicans and even some Democrats: ??
Never mind the fact that most people in the country are demonstrably not conservatives and should reasonably be expected to see things a different way.
The country is about evenly split. It stands to reason then that progressives should see stuff they "disagree" with about half the time and conservatives should see stuff they "disagree" with half the time. That is demonstrably not the case. There is way more pro gun control and pro abortion content on Youtube, just for instance. In fact, if you try to put pro gun or pro life content up on YouTube, it is likely to be removed as hate speech. That is the sort of thing that causes rational people to conclude that there is a clear bias.
Not to mention that being conservative (or liberal) has no inherent relationship to objective reality or factual accuracy.
That is so true that it is scary.
$diety forbid that search results accurately provide results that reflect this fact.
You know how sometimes you read something kooky and you say to yourself, "wow, this person watches too many SciFi/spy/etc. movies."? (That happens a fair bit here on Slashdot).
This article is evidently a case of "wow, these people do not watch nearly enough SciFi/spy/etc. movies."
Oh well. I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.
Is that so? in a large multi-thousand-acre farm you can just wait for days to have someone come fix it for you?
Most farmers are incredibly technically competent people who do repair their own equipment.
If the ability to repair broken equipment on the spot is so important, then why are no ag equipment companies catering to that segment of the market? Ag equipment manufacturing is a competitive industry and just in the US there are at least a half dozen very recognizable brands (meaning that there are probably more than that because someone in the industry would be more knowledgeable about them). To say nothing of equipment from foreign manufacturers.
The lack of a given product or feature in a highly competitive market is prima facie evidence that there is not a significant demand for it. Because if such demand existed, some manufacturer out there would have begun serving that untapped segment of the market in order to gain marketshare over their competitors. But it doesn't and so they haven't.
This is different from the "I want 100 Mbps Internet service but the crappy telco monopoly has no competitors in this area so I get only ISDN and that's it." If there were only a single manufacturer of ag equipment or a small cartel then your argument would make more sense.
You make a good point. However, they are also excellent examples of companies that responded to the demands of the marketplace. They both offer extensive product lines with Linux as a supported operating system, whether you buy from them or from a different vendor or handle it yourself. The point is that the government did not have to force them to make open source offerings (the marketplace took care of that), their choice to make open source offerings is not harming them, but if they chose to not make open source offerings, you would not be able to force them.
The analogy is not perfect, but you get the picture.
I think the more likely possibility is that they convinced the lobbying group that being able to modify the software was something that was not feasible while still retaining manufacturer warranty and perhaps things like emissions certifications (something which is specifically called out in the agreement).
I found the article difficult to read. For example, this part:
These restrictions are enormous. If car mechanics couldnâ(TM)t reprogram car computers, a good portion of modern repairs just wouldnâ(TM)t be possible. When you hire a mechanic to fix the air-conditioning in a Civic, they may have to reprogram the electronic control unit.
I seriously doubt that a mechanic is "reprogramming" the electronic control unit. They might reinitialize it, install a fresh firmware/software image to it, or perhaps adjust the configuration settings. None of those things qualify as "reprogramming." The scant bit of information the article provides about the agreement indicates that modifying the code is a no-go, as is modifying settings that affect emissions. If the code involved is proprietary, then it is within the vendors rights to restrict modification of the code and I suspect that restricting configuration adjustments that affect emissions is probably required by existing California and/or federal law.
I know that the Sashdot summary mentions it is an opinion piece, but did you happen to look at the "About" section? This is it:
Kyle Wiens is the cofounder and CEO of iFixit, an online repair community and parts retailer internationally renowned for its open source repair manuals and product teardowns. Elizabeth Chamberlain is a writer for iFixit and a professor of technical writing and rhetoric at Arkansas State University.
Sure seems like the authors have a vested interest in their viewpoint.
While I don't think the agreement is great overall, it is probably not as bad as the Wired and Motherboard articles are making it to be either.
And the harsh reality is that farmers, for all their blustering, are unwilling to pay that upfront cost. If they were, you can bet that Case and many others would already be offering that easy-to-repair equipment and making a killing over Deere.
So, you are saying that farmers don't really want or need the ability to repair their own equipment? Because that is what the evidence points to. If they really wanted to be able to repair their own equipment they would certainly have bought equipment that they could repair for themselves.
The reality is that making "open source" equipment means less guaranteed revenue after you sell that equipment, which means you have to sell it at a higher upfront cost.
There are plenty of counter-examples to this. IBM and HP immediately spring to mind.
At least as of 2018 that's 78% living paycheck to paycheck.
OK. So, assuming an estimated population of 325,000,000, that means that that 253,500,000 people live paycheck to paycheck and 71,500,000 do not. Of those 71,500,000, more than 90,000,000 own an iPhone. That's right. Mathematically, at least 10% of the US population that supposedly lives to paycheck must own an iPhone for the sales figures to work out. Meaning that if iPhone owners account for every single American who is not in financial distress and then some, that means every single owner of a top of the line Samsung phone comes from the financially distressed segment of the population.
Are there people who live paycheck to paycheck because of legitimate financial hardships that are outside their control? Yes. Is it the absurdly high figure that you trot out in every one of these discussion? Not a chance.
The fact remains that many, or more likely most, people who live paycheck to paycheck live paycheck to paycheck because of their own lifestyle choices. If what you said was true, then I would expect that there would be 4 or 5 budget smart phones sold for every iPhone and high end Samsung. Instead, the opposite is true. That simply cannot happen without a generous helping of personal choice on the part of most consumers. No class warfare needed here.
Why would anyone be ok with censorship of any kind? Isn't the freedom of information important for everyone?
You have this all wrong. This is not censorship. In fact, Google is being a role model for how to make information as free as it can possibly be. Through this partner arrangement, they are making all of the information about every search and every user accessing the tool in question fully, completely, and totally freely available to the Chinese government. The information does not get much freer than that.
The folks at the NSA are jealous that they cannot have the same thing.
In case anybody reading this is sarcasm impaired, this was meant to be sarcastic. Except for the part about the NSA being jealous; that is sadly true.
As the US continues it's long fall towards Socialism, I am saddened by the low information populace who think that this will be a panacea.
Let me try to help you out:
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
socialism n 1: a political theory advocating state ownership of industry 2: an economic system based on state ownership of capital [syn: {socialism}, {socialist economy}] [ant: {capitalism}, {capitalist economy}]
Rice University: William Marsh Rice University, commonly known as Rice University, is a private research university... (emphasis added)
As someone who is strongly committed to both free market principles and also smaller government I think this is utterly fantastic. It doesn't get better than this. It is the polar opposite of Socialism.
The university, a private entity, has made a public financial commitment that better serves its own interests and the public good. Why hate on that? I mean, seriously, I would much rather see this sort of thing than more government handouts. Those handouts require the government to use the police power of state to confiscate private property (the money each taxpayer earns) and then use a corrupt and inefficient system to dole it back out. In fact, federal education spending is probably the most wasteful spending on the part of the federal government. The university doing this for themselves means that they have a vested interest in efficiently applying the funds in question and in producing the best outcomes (successful alumni who improve the school's reputation and donate back to the school).
Sorry, but you are way off base and this should be the way that education gets fixed in this country: by the schools, not by the government.
So... being a minority, by definition, means you are underserved? Being the first person in your family to go to college means you are being underserved?
I get where you are coming from. However, the fact remains that there is a fairly strong correlation between parental educational attainment and offspring educational attainment. Both parents went to college, kids will almost definitely go to college. One parent went to college, still better than even chance that the kids will go to college. Neither parent went to college, then the chances of a kid going to college drop off a cliff.
This is likely for two reasons: 1) parents who did not go to college are less likely to emphasize that their kids go to college; 2) people who did not go to college tend to earn less than those who did and we all know about the cost of education these days.
Based on that, I think it is entirely logical to consider that the first person in their family to attend college is something other than the expected norm. Now, whether that should qualify as "underserved" or not, I don't know.
This sort of "words no longer mean anything" crap has completely swamped the entire educational establishment.
I have to agree with you here. Of course, it is not just the educational establishment. The political establishment suffers from it and even some parts of the scientific establishment. Plenty to go around.
"This groundbreaking initiative will help governments, businesses and landowners pinpoint -- and stop -- destructive emissions with unprecedented precision, on a scale that's never been done before...."
That sounds like exactly what Trump would say to sell one of his own initiatives. The words like "groundbreaking," "unprecedented," and "never been done before" sure have a very used car salesman sort of ring to them.
Anywhere else in the country, we'd be successful people who owned a home and didn't worry about anything,
The solution is obvious: move somewhere else.
There are plenty of tech all across the "flyover states." Garmin is in Oklahoma, Boeing is in Kansas (along with a number of other aviation companies), Motorola and T.I. are in Austin, NASA is in Houston, 3M and Target are in Minnesota, etc.
You will probably earn a little bit less, but the cost of living will be much lower and the quality of life will almost certainly be much higher. Especially if less commuting and less traffic are appealing and if you want to be able to afford to have one parent work only part time or even not even be employed in order to parent full-time.
Like the rest of this administration, the FCC is a criminal enterprise now (emphasis added)
Nice job, Trump voters
I just knew that this sort of thing was going to crop up in this discussion. Let me share a few quotes from the report:
According to the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC), as of December 2016, 35.4 percent of Americans residing on tribal lands lacked access to fixed broadband services, compared to 7.7 percent of all Americans.
owever, in 2016 we
reported that tribal and federal officials had concerns that the federal map
of broadband availability at the time (the National Broadband Map) did not
accurately depict broadband availability on tribal lands.
The federal government has not updated the National Broadband Map
since April 2015, with the last update containing data as of June 30,
2014.
To address both objectives, we analyzed FCCâ(TM)s December 2016â"the
most recent data at the time of our review
In case it isn't obvious, all of those statements clearly indicate that the data and analysis are from prior to Trump taking office. Now, the Trump administration has done plenty that is worthy of criticism, but so did the Obama administration. Yet, I see plenty of Republicans willing to openly criticize Trump, but hardly any Democrats willing to criticize Obama, Hillary, etc.
If the strategy is to always blame the other side, even when your side was the source or a major part of the problem, then it is difficult to actually fix anything.
Unemployment numbers are a good example. Democrats continually complained that Bush wasn't using the "real" numbers since U3 (I think it is) does not accurately reflect labor participation, among other things. They same complaint is being made about Trump. Interestingly, the methodology remained unchanged under Obama, yet I cannot recall a single instance of a prominent Democrat or the media calling out Obama for fudging the unemployment numbers.
And lest you think that I am biased against Obama and the Democrats, the Republicans do the same thing. Listen to a Republican rant and rave about Obama racking up more debt then every previous president put together. Then ask what the majority party was in Congress that sent him spending bills for 6 of the 8 years of his presidency.
Seriously, own it when your own side is wrong and then get to work fixing it.
Slashdot Mirror
We could do it in the US, but we've got evangelical so-called "christians" who refuse to give their kids the vaccine, because Jesus told them sex is bad, m'kay?
How come women (read: girls in high school) are allowed to choose to have an abortion but not allowed to choose to have or not have this vaccine? How does forcing them to get the vaccine support their control over their own bodies? Because, you know, there was a small court case about the government telling women what they could/could not do with their bodies (read: abortions). But, you might have missed it.
Still, since you probably missed that bit, it explains why you think it is OK for the government to force girls to get HPV vaccines.
These are the same people who will enthusiastically vote for child molesters and men who admit to committing sexual assault because their helmet-haired preachers have told them they are "chosen".
I know you must be upset about Senator Cory Booker, as am I, since it has come to light that he sexually assaulted a teenage girl when he was in high school (by his own written admission, no less). I trust that the 56% of New Jersians who voted for him will find someone suitable to replace him when his seat comes up in 2020. I also trust that his presidential prospects are dead in the water.
... with the level of corruption in my country? Hell no.
What's frustrating is the folks demanding a "free market" solution to the problem.
As you point out, there are times the free market can be slow. However, absent some external distortion (e.g., the tax code, monopoly, burdensome/unfair regulation, etc.) the free market is by far the most effective and efficient (from a utilization of capital perspective) way to achieve an optimal solution.
In the same way that the scientific method is inherently unbiased, the free market is inherently free of corruption. Now, since people manage to bias the scientific method, you can bet that they also manage to corrupt the free market. But the equilibrium of the system tends away from that, unlike government which tends toward an equilibrium of corruption.
I think it is a realistic market model to expect that some universities wish to realize the high student payments that can be extracted by the richest families, and thus many universities are competing to be "highly selective"
I teach at a public university that is not selective (or cannot be selective, not sure). In any event, here are their recruiting priorities (and they are open about this): international graduate students, out of state graduate students, other international and out of state students, and (finally) in state students.
I will let you guess why those are the recruiting priorities.
I can buy a 65" TV for $400 that's affordable without debt even on $12 bucks an hour. That SUV is used and built on a truck platform. It may guzzle gas but it's cheaper design makes it much more reliable. When you buy a vehicle even poor folks consider total ROI (though most wouldn't know it's called ROI).
Your cognitive dissonance is just astounding. In one breath you shriek about paycheck to paycheck, with dubious figures to accompany it, you have in other discussions cited things like Medical debt as a reason for people living paycheck to paycheck and then in the next breath argue that things like luxury electronics and luxury vehicles (yes, SUVs are luxury vehicles when you consider that the median transaction price for a passenger car is in the $25,000 range, while the median transaction price for an SUV is in the $35,000 and that the SUV is more expensive to operate, maintain, and insure) are affordable on the equivalent of $24,000/year.
Seriously, just accept that there are some people out there with legitimate financial problems but you also need to accept the reality that there are plenty of people whose financial hardships are a clear and direct result of their own conscious choice to pursue consumerism as a lifestyle.
At least 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. That's not middle class and it's certainly not "no longer at risk of poverty".
You trot out this sort of statistic every time. A quick look at some actual facts will show you that the issue is more complex than that. Also, it would help if you stuck to a consistent set of figures. Here is you a few days ago claiming the number is 78% percent.
Yes, I know that "at least 60%" can be considered to cover 78% as well, but the fact that you chose the stronger number the fist time a few days ago and then softened your statement this time makes me think you don't actually believe the number or they are bogus.
Then, here is me using top of the line smart phone sales numbers to show that a good portion of those supposedly living pay check to pay check are still possessed of a considerable amount of disposable income. Of course, I was modded "troll" for my trouble.
The bottom line, is we can't both be in an era where most people are in danger of falling into poverty at any moment and at the same time be in an era where most people have more discretionary income than at any time in history. Given the people I know and the choices I see them make, I am going to stick with: people (at least in the US) who live pay check to pay check mostly live that way because they fully embrace consumerism as a way of life.
Kavanaugh is a Bush-appointed judge. He doesn't give two shits about the constitution.
You say that in a way that makes it seem like judges appointed by Democrat presidents care about the constitution in a measurably better way. They don't. I won't bother repeating myself and instead just link to an earlier comment comment I made about the eminent domain case that SCOTUS decided a few years ago.
In the event you don't feel like reading, the summary is: the liberal justices on the court (along with Kennedy as the swing vote) ruled that private property could be seized from its private owner and given to another private entity because redevelopment of property in way that increases the tax base counts as a "public good". Think about that. Under the precedent of that decision, the government can seize your private property and give it to someone else if that someone else can make a case for better use of the property. It does not have to be to create a park or build a road. It can be any use somehow might benefit the public. In the case that SCOTUS decided the actual redevelopment plan fell through and so the original owner was left without his property and the local citizens were left without their promised improvements.
Asians are more likely to enroll at college, and more likely to succeed there. Asians are a minority in the US and other western countries, and yet they are highly successful.
... these other minority groups which are failing to grasp them - in many cases because their culture and attitude is self destructive.
I think if you break it down further, like Chinese, Japanese and Korean compared to Indian and Indonesian, for example, there is even a clear delineation where some sub-groups do better than other sub-groups within the larger Asian ethnic bloc.
The exact same thing exists within the Hispanic ethnic bloc between, say, Cubans and Mexicans.
For Gowda, it was the fact that Google Maps is a global, commercial product and did not capture local detail. Like the old banyan tree that was a major landmark in his hometown Hassan or public benches just outside the town where pedestrians could stop to catch a break or fire catchment areas in Bellandur lake in Bengaluru, India.
"It was fascinating to add little but important details of my town to open maps," says Gowda who was introduced in 2013 to OSM or OpenStreetMap, a global community of mappers formed as a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world in 2004. Since then he has been an active contributor to OpenStreetMap and has conducted many workshops in colleges and institutes to induct more people in the community. Gowda has made 8500 edits in the OpenStreetMap, mainly covering areas in Bengaluru, Hassan and Hyderabad.
This sounds like a really neat idea. However, I quit contributing to Wikipedia because of the nonsense that comes with it. It was very frustrating to see the constant edit wars on even semi-controversial content. To say nothing of really controversial pages. Or of the people who think they are "experts" on some topic trying to "correct" people who are actual experts.
Then there is legion of "we must add every detail of everything, no matter how minor" pitted against the legion "everything in Wikipedia must meet some arbitrary high standard of significance." And of course, everyone has to put up with the admins (I won't even get into everything that can go wrong there).
I can't help but think that while this will in the macro sense be a good thing for society and for democratizing information, part of the cost will be that you have to actually investigate the history of every thing that actually matters to you. I can also see how over time it will become increasingly difficult for people who want to make just one or two small contributions when there are others with nothing better to do than to "police" their favorite content full time.
It would be interesting to see what the middle east is going to do when the buried treasure that's kept them afloat so long is worth about the same as the rocks that bury it.
I have said this before in a similar discussion, but it bears repeating. Venezuela is probably a solid indicator of what is in store for the Middle East if the petroleum market crashes hard.
... as well as the providing of credit monitoring services ...
Credit monitoring is a joke. By the time you get the alert the damage may have already been done. Better to just freeze your credit. In fact, as of this past week it is now free nationwide. It was previously regulated by states and some were free while others allowed the credit bureaus to charge a small fee. In any event, having credit monitoring without freezing your credit is like having a burglar alarm but not bothering to lock the doors and windows. Better to just lock up.
True, according to the Constitution. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court believes otherwise.
True. But did you happen to look at which justices were in the majority on that decision? "Stevens, joined by Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer" (from the same Wikipedia article you linked)
Even better was the executive order President George W. Bush issued the year after the ruling, including this text:
...for the purpose of benefiting the general public and not merely for the purpose of advancing the economic interest of private parties to be given ownership or use of the property taken.
Granted, as noted in the Wikipedia article, the federal government does not use eminent domain nearly as much as state and local governments. Still, it is interesting since Bush is frequently accused being a corporatist, for the rich, and having no respect for the constitution.
Better still was the legislation which was introduced, the Protection of Homes, Small Businesses, and Private Property Act of 2005, co-sponsored by 30 (yes, 30) Republicans (you know, the party of the rich) and 2 (yes, only 2) Democrats (you know, the party of the little guy). Sadly, it never made it out of committee while the Republicans had the majority and it appears the Democrats had no interest in fixing this when they took the majority.
It just goes to show. Republicans have their occasional good day and Democrats have their occasional bad day.
It's amazing how everything that doesn't agree with conservative political opinions somehow equals liberal bias.
It cuts both ways.
Progressives: This woman is a survivor of sexual assault! She must be allowed to speak! All women must be believed!
Republicans: OK. Let her come testify. How is next week? Her place or ours?
Progressives: How dare you demand that she speak!
Republicans: ??
Progressives: See?!?!? They don't believe her?
Republicans: What about the supposed witnesses that can't back up the claims (even though the accuser said they would back up the claim) and what about the dozens of women who support the accused?
Progressives: Ignore them! All women must be believed! What we meant to say was that all women must believed so long as what they say brings harm to men; women who say things that don't harm men or who even suggest that men should be allowed to defend themselves when accused are not to be believed because they are really just tools of the patriarchy! (but we didn't say that the first time because it doesn't have the same ring to it and protesters would have a hard time fitting all onto a sign.)
Republicans and even some Democrats: ??
Never mind the fact that most people in the country are demonstrably not conservatives and should reasonably be expected to see things a different way.
The country is about evenly split. It stands to reason then that progressives should see stuff they "disagree" with about half the time and conservatives should see stuff they "disagree" with half the time. That is demonstrably not the case. There is way more pro gun control and pro abortion content on Youtube, just for instance. In fact, if you try to put pro gun or pro life content up on YouTube, it is likely to be removed as hate speech. That is the sort of thing that causes rational people to conclude that there is a clear bias.
Not to mention that being conservative (or liberal) has no inherent relationship to objective reality or factual accuracy.
That is so true that it is scary.
$diety forbid that search results accurately provide results that reflect this fact.
They don't. Hence why some people are frustrated.
You know how sometimes you read something kooky and you say to yourself, "wow, this person watches too many SciFi/spy/etc. movies."? (That happens a fair bit here on Slashdot).
This article is evidently a case of "wow, these people do not watch nearly enough SciFi/spy/etc. movies."
Oh well. I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.
Is that so? in a large multi-thousand-acre farm you can just wait for days to have someone come fix it for you?
Most farmers are incredibly technically competent people who do repair their own equipment.
If the ability to repair broken equipment on the spot is so important, then why are no ag equipment companies catering to that segment of the market? Ag equipment manufacturing is a competitive industry and just in the US there are at least a half dozen very recognizable brands (meaning that there are probably more than that because someone in the industry would be more knowledgeable about them). To say nothing of equipment from foreign manufacturers.
The lack of a given product or feature in a highly competitive market is prima facie evidence that there is not a significant demand for it. Because if such demand existed, some manufacturer out there would have begun serving that untapped segment of the market in order to gain marketshare over their competitors. But it doesn't and so they haven't.
This is different from the "I want 100 Mbps Internet service but the crappy telco monopoly has no competitors in this area so I get only ISDN and that's it." If there were only a single manufacturer of ag equipment or a small cartel then your argument would make more sense.
You make a good point. However, they are also excellent examples of companies that responded to the demands of the marketplace. They both offer extensive product lines with Linux as a supported operating system, whether you buy from them or from a different vendor or handle it yourself. The point is that the government did not have to force them to make open source offerings (the marketplace took care of that), their choice to make open source offerings is not harming them, but if they chose to not make open source offerings, you would not be able to force them.
The analogy is not perfect, but you get the picture.
I think the more likely possibility is that they convinced the lobbying group that being able to modify the software was something that was not feasible while still retaining manufacturer warranty and perhaps things like emissions certifications (something which is specifically called out in the agreement).
I found the article difficult to read. For example, this part:
These restrictions are enormous. If car mechanics couldnâ(TM)t reprogram car computers, a good portion of modern repairs just wouldnâ(TM)t be possible. When you hire a mechanic to fix the air-conditioning in a Civic, they may have to reprogram the electronic control unit.
I seriously doubt that a mechanic is "reprogramming" the electronic control unit. They might reinitialize it, install a fresh firmware/software image to it, or perhaps adjust the configuration settings. None of those things qualify as "reprogramming." The scant bit of information the article provides about the agreement indicates that modifying the code is a no-go, as is modifying settings that affect emissions. If the code involved is proprietary, then it is within the vendors rights to restrict modification of the code and I suspect that restricting configuration adjustments that affect emissions is probably required by existing California and/or federal law.
I know that the Sashdot summary mentions it is an opinion piece, but did you happen to look at the "About" section? This is it:
Kyle Wiens is the cofounder and CEO of iFixit, an online repair community and parts retailer internationally renowned for its open source repair manuals and product teardowns. Elizabeth Chamberlain is a writer for iFixit and a professor of technical writing and rhetoric at Arkansas State University.
Sure seems like the authors have a vested interest in their viewpoint.
While I don't think the agreement is great overall, it is probably not as bad as the Wired and Motherboard articles are making it to be either.
And the harsh reality is that farmers, for all their blustering, are unwilling to pay that upfront cost. If they were, you can bet that Case and many others would already be offering that easy-to-repair equipment and making a killing over Deere.
So, you are saying that farmers don't really want or need the ability to repair their own equipment? Because that is what the evidence points to. If they really wanted to be able to repair their own equipment they would certainly have bought equipment that they could repair for themselves.
The reality is that making "open source" equipment means less guaranteed revenue after you sell that equipment, which means you have to sell it at a higher upfront cost.
There are plenty of counter-examples to this. IBM and HP immediately spring to mind.
At least as of 2018 that's 78% living paycheck to paycheck.
OK. So, assuming an estimated population of 325,000,000, that means that that 253,500,000 people live paycheck to paycheck and 71,500,000 do not. Of those 71,500,000, more than 90,000,000 own an iPhone. That's right. Mathematically, at least 10% of the US population that supposedly lives to paycheck must own an iPhone for the sales figures to work out. Meaning that if iPhone owners account for every single American who is not in financial distress and then some, that means every single owner of a top of the line Samsung phone comes from the financially distressed segment of the population.
Are there people who live paycheck to paycheck because of legitimate financial hardships that are outside their control? Yes. Is it the absurdly high figure that you trot out in every one of these discussion? Not a chance.
The fact remains that many, or more likely most, people who live paycheck to paycheck live paycheck to paycheck because of their own lifestyle choices. If what you said was true, then I would expect that there would be 4 or 5 budget smart phones sold for every iPhone and high end Samsung. Instead, the opposite is true. That simply cannot happen without a generous helping of personal choice on the part of most consumers. No class warfare needed here.
Why would anyone be ok with censorship of any kind? Isn't the freedom of information important for everyone?
You have this all wrong. This is not censorship. In fact, Google is being a role model for how to make information as free as it can possibly be. Through this partner arrangement, they are making all of the information about every search and every user accessing the tool in question fully, completely, and totally freely available to the Chinese government. The information does not get much freer than that.
The folks at the NSA are jealous that they cannot have the same thing.
In case anybody reading this is sarcasm impaired, this was meant to be sarcastic. Except for the part about the NSA being jealous; that is sadly true.
As the US continues it's long fall towards Socialism, I am saddened by the low information populace who think that this will be a panacea.
Let me try to help you out:
Rice University: William Marsh Rice University, commonly known as Rice University, is a private research university ... (emphasis added)
As someone who is strongly committed to both free market principles and also smaller government I think this is utterly fantastic. It doesn't get better than this. It is the polar opposite of Socialism.
The university, a private entity, has made a public financial commitment that better serves its own interests and the public good. Why hate on that? I mean, seriously, I would much rather see this sort of thing than more government handouts. Those handouts require the government to use the police power of state to confiscate private property (the money each taxpayer earns) and then use a corrupt and inefficient system to dole it back out. In fact, federal education spending is probably the most wasteful spending on the part of the federal government. The university doing this for themselves means that they have a vested interest in efficiently applying the funds in question and in producing the best outcomes (successful alumni who improve the school's reputation and donate back to the school).
Sorry, but you are way off base and this should be the way that education gets fixed in this country: by the schools, not by the government.
The US is littered with used computers. Just ask around and you will find some spare ones and can avoid the $150.
Another good option: FreeGeek in Portland (and on Wikipedia if you want to see some of the other locations).
So ... being a minority, by definition, means you are underserved? Being the first person in your family to go to college means you are being underserved?
I get where you are coming from. However, the fact remains that there is a fairly strong correlation between parental educational attainment and offspring educational attainment. Both parents went to college, kids will almost definitely go to college. One parent went to college, still better than even chance that the kids will go to college. Neither parent went to college, then the chances of a kid going to college drop off a cliff.
This is likely for two reasons: 1) parents who did not go to college are less likely to emphasize that their kids go to college; 2) people who did not go to college tend to earn less than those who did and we all know about the cost of education these days.
Based on that, I think it is entirely logical to consider that the first person in their family to attend college is something other than the expected norm. Now, whether that should qualify as "underserved" or not, I don't know.
This sort of "words no longer mean anything" crap has completely swamped the entire educational establishment.
I have to agree with you here. Of course, it is not just the educational establishment. The political establishment suffers from it and even some parts of the scientific establishment. Plenty to go around.
"This groundbreaking initiative will help governments, businesses and landowners pinpoint -- and stop -- destructive emissions with unprecedented precision, on a scale that's never been done before...."
That sounds like exactly what Trump would say to sell one of his own initiatives. The words like "groundbreaking," "unprecedented," and "never been done before" sure have a very used car salesman sort of ring to them.
Anywhere else in the country, we'd be successful people who owned a home and didn't worry about anything,
The solution is obvious: move somewhere else.
There are plenty of tech all across the "flyover states." Garmin is in Oklahoma, Boeing is in Kansas (along with a number of other aviation companies), Motorola and T.I. are in Austin, NASA is in Houston, 3M and Target are in Minnesota, etc.
You will probably earn a little bit less, but the cost of living will be much lower and the quality of life will almost certainly be much higher. Especially if less commuting and less traffic are appealing and if you want to be able to afford to have one parent work only part time or even not even be employed in order to parent full-time.
Like the rest of this administration, the FCC is a criminal enterprise now (emphasis added)
Nice job, Trump voters
I just knew that this sort of thing was going to crop up in this discussion. Let me share a few quotes from the report:
According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as of December 2016, 35.4 percent of Americans residing on tribal lands lacked access to fixed broadband services, compared to 7.7 percent of all Americans.
owever, in 2016 we reported that tribal and federal officials had concerns that the federal map of broadband availability at the time (the National Broadband Map) did not accurately depict broadband availability on tribal lands.
The federal government has not updated the National Broadband Map since April 2015, with the last update containing data as of June 30, 2014.
To address both objectives, we analyzed FCCâ(TM)s December 2016â"the most recent data at the time of our review
In case it isn't obvious, all of those statements clearly indicate that the data and analysis are from prior to Trump taking office. Now, the Trump administration has done plenty that is worthy of criticism, but so did the Obama administration. Yet, I see plenty of Republicans willing to openly criticize Trump, but hardly any Democrats willing to criticize Obama, Hillary, etc.
If the strategy is to always blame the other side, even when your side was the source or a major part of the problem, then it is difficult to actually fix anything.
Unemployment numbers are a good example. Democrats continually complained that Bush wasn't using the "real" numbers since U3 (I think it is) does not accurately reflect labor participation, among other things. They same complaint is being made about Trump. Interestingly, the methodology remained unchanged under Obama, yet I cannot recall a single instance of a prominent Democrat or the media calling out Obama for fudging the unemployment numbers.
And lest you think that I am biased against Obama and the Democrats, the Republicans do the same thing. Listen to a Republican rant and rave about Obama racking up more debt then every previous president put together. Then ask what the majority party was in Congress that sent him spending bills for 6 of the 8 years of his presidency.
Seriously, own it when your own side is wrong and then get to work fixing it.