>So when it comes to automation replacing jobs, why does the list of things we need more of never include "birth control"?
Because that view includes the assumption that only the richest people have any inherent value. Even the poorest person has as much right to exist and have children as the richest.
We should be encouraging a population reduction because we can more easily maintain our lifestyle if we have smaller numbers, not because rich people don't need servants any longer.
>That ship has sailed, but there will be other sample return probes.
Isn't it kind of awesome to live in an era where you can say that, with confidence, we're going to bring back more stuff from space to have a look at it?
I still want my O'Neill cylinder and Orion drive, though.
My cat would look at you like you're an idiot regardless of whether you really threw the ball or just faked it. I don't take that as a sign of intelligence or of stupidity. He's just a cat.
You have the right to face your accuser, which includes examining the evidence against you. This is secret evidence. It amounts to "because we say so", and should not be tolerated.
A software bug you're not permitted to look for could send you to jail. At least with a human expert witness you can cross-examine them.
> My speculation is that Trump is trying to provoke Kim Jong "Rocket Man" Un to do something rash
My speculation is that Trump has an ego only outsized by his mouth, and he has no plan at all beyond trying to out-insult NK. He's a stupid egotistical hypersensitive bully, and simply doesn't have a complicated playbook to draw on.
The difference between my speculation and yours is that mine explains everything he's said and done and yours... well, yours doesn't.
Nice post. A shame it couldn't be shoved under the appropriate politician's noses (perhaps with a bit more dumbing down... I doubt they understand 'packet', 'jitter', etc.).
Then we need another post like yours to describe in very simple terms why it's a bad idea to let ISPs discriminate based on source and willingness to pay fees.
Everything you describe sounds like a feature to me, not a bug. Such a system would not only translate language, but culture.
For common speech, this is an incredible advancement. Sure, you'll run into trouble when you specifically want a chair and the local custom is to sit on cushions... but when you're asking which 'chair' to sit on it'll work just fine and you'll figure it out when you're about to sit.
For a large portion of the 19th-20th Century many Greeks measured distance in cigarettes - how many cigarettes I will smoke while travelling from one place to another.
There is no cognate in English for this.
You've never described something a car trip in gas tanks? It's rare, but it happens, especially when planning longer trips.
At one point it went into the 80s. Later on the high channels got reassigned to 60 (In Toronto, CITY-TV started out as 79 and was later moved to 57). I'm not sure if that was due to problems with interference or simply a re-purposing of the frequency range.
Most of us have at least a vague understanding of why some companies wanted NN destroyed, and how it will negatively affect American Internet services from the perspective of the average user.
How many liars will come out of the woodwork this time to support the NN repeal by sharing 'alternate facts' and tell us history didn't happen the way it's documented?
A microaggression is anything you say that hurts the feelings of someone (often a third party) who is irrationally willing to get pissy about it because they feel empowered by what they read about SJW crap in the news and on the Internet.
The K-9 model (the Doctor and Sarah have had more than one) has not aged well. I mean... seriously... a 51st-century robot dog on incredibly slow treads, without enough clearance to climb over even the smallest obstacle?
Good dog, though. Good dog.
And you have to admit his nose laser and self-recharging batteries are pretty impressive technologies, even if his locomotion systems sucked.
One of the problems with the Internet is also one of its great strengths - it allows people who are not geographically adjacent to form communities.
Normally these edge cases would be socially isolated and unable to cause trouble, but when they find each other online they can form a mob, and a motivated mob (whether rational or not) is a force. It's a case of the organised and passionate minority overpowering the disorganised and ambivalent majority.
Thankfully... eventually there's pushback. You just have to hope it doesn't go too far in the other direction.
>that still means Bitcoin would be worth 625 times as much as the first transaction.
To the few using it - in such a scenario there'd be pretty much no place left to use Bitcoin, so it'd be like trading homemade poker chips amongst a small group of friends.
> When, exactly, did getting a warrant become such a burden on law enforcement?
Shortly after the police discovered they could get access to information they wanted, and as soon as they realized they could get it faster without a warrant.
It's just numbers... so you move the decimal place over and deal with smaller units. There are lots of issues with Bitcoin, this isn't one of them.
>Or can we re-e-print new BTC money?
BTC is controlled by whoever owns enough of the network verification capacity to decide which transactions are considered valid and which are not, tempered by a need not to do anything that destroys the underlying confidence of the network users.
At least, that would work for taking control of abandoned tokens in the ledger. For adding new tokens, I'm not sure if the clients would notice token 21,000,001 shouldn't exist and raise an error. Then again, if you control enough of the network you can simply announce the change along with some song-and-dance about why it's necessary and how it won't be a problem, then push users to adapt. If the world doesn't go along with it, Bitcoin forks and the market becomes unstable (which is not in any player's interest in most scenarios).
>Think when the bubble pops it's all going away? Or do you think it will return to a baseline value and stabilize?
It's difficult to tell. It seems there's an unending stream of new kids finding this 'amazing new technology' and jumping in enthusiastically but uncritically - and a portion of those never get past the enthusiasm stage.
Then there's the 'get rich quick' people, who understand nothing at all about the system but can parrot talking points... they're the ones who would most likely move on to the next scheme when Bitcoin crashes in value.
Still... I'm not so sure there won't be a significant number of computers running full Bitcoin nodes and continuing the original blockchain for a long, long time, if only for some obscure geek cred. And those remaining users could still use it as currency.
A small enough group of users doing that and it'd probably have whatever (likely insignificant) value they assign to it at the moment, essentially rendering it even less stable than it is now. You know, "Hey, Joe... can I have a slice of pizza for a bitcoin???"
>I'm just very confused on *where* they are finding the time, energy, etc
Post-kid sex is often not quite as casual or energetic as pre-kid sex, that's for sure. Definitely not as energetic at least until you get to occasionally sleep for 8 hours straight.
> It's not a good idea if you want to run a national economy on it. I don't think anybody is trying the latter
Bitcoin is like lupus; it looks different every time it's promoted.
Indeed, it was not so long ago (even in Internet time) that proponents were claiming you could use Bitcoin alone to get by in the world.
>It's a good idea if you mostly use it for storing your wealth
Sticking with the specific case of Bitcoin, and not the general case you appear to be making, no, no it is not. Mostly because Bitcoin has no value beyond speculation, and the hype train could derail at any moment. If you board and disembark from the train at the right time, you could get rich... but every speculation bubble in history has had more people lose than win trying to time that.
>The money will in the end come from one American, yes.
Funny you say that. I was googling for citizen PACs to see if any already existed... and there's a Citizen SuperPAC. It has only two donors of significance, and one of them is obscured behind a corporate front.
Slashdot Mirror
>So when it comes to automation replacing jobs, why does the list of things we need more of never include "birth control"?
Because that view includes the assumption that only the richest people have any inherent value. Even the poorest person has as much right to exist and have children as the richest.
We should be encouraging a population reduction because we can more easily maintain our lifestyle if we have smaller numbers, not because rich people don't need servants any longer.
>That ship has sailed, but there will be other sample return probes.
Isn't it kind of awesome to live in an era where you can say that, with confidence, we're going to bring back more stuff from space to have a look at it?
I still want my O'Neill cylinder and Orion drive, though.
My cat would look at you like you're an idiot regardless of whether you really threw the ball or just faked it. I don't take that as a sign of intelligence or of stupidity. He's just a cat.
Historically, it would not be unusual for them to not even have the BTC anyway.
If they're caught short, they simply claim a hack, say they're working to find the real killer, then disappear as quickly as they can.
You have the right to face your accuser, which includes examining the evidence against you. This is secret evidence. It amounts to "because we say so", and should not be tolerated.
A software bug you're not permitted to look for could send you to jail. At least with a human expert witness you can cross-examine them.
> My speculation is that Trump is trying to provoke Kim Jong "Rocket Man" Un to do something rash
My speculation is that Trump has an ego only outsized by his mouth, and he has no plan at all beyond trying to out-insult NK. He's a stupid egotistical hypersensitive bully, and simply doesn't have a complicated playbook to draw on.
The difference between my speculation and yours is that mine explains everything he's said and done and yours... well, yours doesn't.
>Until bitcoin starts offering free miles, or rewards points, or cash back or something like that
Or perhaps the ability to, you know, use it in common financial exchange scenarios?
> I can't fathom why anyone would use it.
The rapid increase in reported value on the exchanges, a few success stories, and greed outweighing common sense.
Nice post. A shame it couldn't be shoved under the appropriate politician's noses (perhaps with a bit more dumbing down... I doubt they understand 'packet', 'jitter', etc.).
Then we need another post like yours to describe in very simple terms why it's a bad idea to let ISPs discriminate based on source and willingness to pay fees.
Everything you describe sounds like a feature to me, not a bug. Such a system would not only translate language, but culture.
For common speech, this is an incredible advancement. Sure, you'll run into trouble when you specifically want a chair and the local custom is to sit on cushions... but when you're asking which 'chair' to sit on it'll work just fine and you'll figure it out when you're about to sit.
You've never described something a car trip in gas tanks? It's rare, but it happens, especially when planning longer trips.
> And yes, I can count, I was a math major waaaay back when
So was I, yet decimal places are my mortal enemies...
>VHS (14-72?)
At one point it went into the 80s. Later on the high channels got reassigned to 60 (In Toronto, CITY-TV started out as 79 and was later moved to 57). I'm not sure if that was due to problems with interference or simply a re-purposing of the frequency range.
Nope, I understand how bitcoin works, and thus I know you're a liar.
Liar.
Current transaction fees and times make the activities you describe impossible.
Most of us have at least a vague understanding of why some companies wanted NN destroyed, and how it will negatively affect American Internet services from the perspective of the average user.
How many liars will come out of the woodwork this time to support the NN repeal by sharing 'alternate facts' and tell us history didn't happen the way it's documented?
>microaggression
A microaggression is anything you say that hurts the feelings of someone (often a third party) who is irrationally willing to get pissy about it because they feel empowered by what they read about SJW crap in the news and on the Internet.
The K-9 model (the Doctor and Sarah have had more than one) has not aged well. I mean... seriously... a 51st-century robot dog on incredibly slow treads, without enough clearance to climb over even the smallest obstacle?
Good dog, though. Good dog.
And you have to admit his nose laser and self-recharging batteries are pretty impressive technologies, even if his locomotion systems sucked.
One of the problems with the Internet is also one of its great strengths - it allows people who are not geographically adjacent to form communities.
Normally these edge cases would be socially isolated and unable to cause trouble, but when they find each other online they can form a mob, and a motivated mob (whether rational or not) is a force. It's a case of the organised and passionate minority overpowering the disorganised and ambivalent majority.
Thankfully... eventually there's pushback. You just have to hope it doesn't go too far in the other direction.
>that still means Bitcoin would be worth 625 times as much as the first transaction.
To the few using it - in such a scenario there'd be pretty much no place left to use Bitcoin, so it'd be like trading homemade poker chips amongst a small group of friends.
> When, exactly, did getting a warrant become such a burden on law enforcement?
Shortly after the police discovered they could get access to information they wanted, and as soon as they realized they could get it faster without a warrant.
>How is it solved?
It's just numbers... so you move the decimal place over and deal with smaller units. There are lots of issues with Bitcoin, this isn't one of them.
>Or can we re-e-print new BTC money?
BTC is controlled by whoever owns enough of the network verification capacity to decide which transactions are considered valid and which are not, tempered by a need not to do anything that destroys the underlying confidence of the network users.
At least, that would work for taking control of abandoned tokens in the ledger. For adding new tokens, I'm not sure if the clients would notice token 21,000,001 shouldn't exist and raise an error. Then again, if you control enough of the network you can simply announce the change along with some song-and-dance about why it's necessary and how it won't be a problem, then push users to adapt. If the world doesn't go along with it, Bitcoin forks and the market becomes unstable (which is not in any player's interest in most scenarios).
>Think when the bubble pops it's all going away? Or do you think it will return to a baseline value and stabilize?
It's difficult to tell. It seems there's an unending stream of new kids finding this 'amazing new technology' and jumping in enthusiastically but uncritically - and a portion of those never get past the enthusiasm stage.
Then there's the 'get rich quick' people, who understand nothing at all about the system but can parrot talking points... they're the ones who would most likely move on to the next scheme when Bitcoin crashes in value.
Still... I'm not so sure there won't be a significant number of computers running full Bitcoin nodes and continuing the original blockchain for a long, long time, if only for some obscure geek cred. And those remaining users could still use it as currency.
A small enough group of users doing that and it'd probably have whatever (likely insignificant) value they assign to it at the moment, essentially rendering it even less stable than it is now. You know, "Hey, Joe... can I have a slice of pizza for a bitcoin???"
>I'm just very confused on *where* they are finding the time, energy, etc
Post-kid sex is often not quite as casual or energetic as pre-kid sex, that's for sure. Definitely not as energetic at least until you get to occasionally sleep for 8 hours straight.
Ahh, so you weren't making a general case and you're a Bitcoin lunatic.
Noted.
> It's not a good idea if you want to run a national economy on it. I don't think anybody is trying the latter
Bitcoin is like lupus; it looks different every time it's promoted.
Indeed, it was not so long ago (even in Internet time) that proponents were claiming you could use Bitcoin alone to get by in the world.
>It's a good idea if you mostly use it for storing your wealth
Sticking with the specific case of Bitcoin, and not the general case you appear to be making, no, no it is not. Mostly because Bitcoin has no value beyond speculation, and the hype train could derail at any moment. If you board and disembark from the train at the right time, you could get rich... but every speculation bubble in history has had more people lose than win trying to time that.
>The money will in the end come from one American, yes.
Funny you say that. I was googling for citizen PACs to see if any already existed... and there's a Citizen SuperPAC. It has only two donors of significance, and one of them is obscured behind a corporate front.