You can also parse that 'which' as, "but a total success". That makes the sentence: "It's not a total success, but a total success isn't to be expected after Puerto Ricans' communications infrastructure suffered so much damage".
English isn't the most precise language in the world, simply one with high utility and popularity.
100% with you on this. Not only that, but hovering over your children filtering every experience they have is bad for them too. We call those parents 'helicopter parents' and complain about the bad behaviour of their 'snowflakes'.
I've taught my kids that inappropriate content exists and that I don't want them watching it. They also know that I will randomly pop my head in once in a while to see what's on their screens. And they know I have the ability to monitor their network connection if I want to do so. They generally stick to the kid-approved sources and it's nice to know that the content therein is well filtered so I don't have to be too concerned or vigilant.
I also know they're sneaking peaks at stuff they shouldn't. As long as it's not totally out of bounds and it's not happening frequently... so what? They're kids and that's part of growing up.
I don't know about you, but when I was a kid I saw a porn magazine or two when I was far younger than I should have been, and I occasionally snuck some inappropriate late-night television movies into my schedule when I was a bit older. I'm pretty sure I'm mostly undamaged.
> Doesn't matter if it's true or not (just look at what happened to Kevin Spacey when he tried denying the accusations made against him in a diplomatic way that didn't involve going on the offensive)
I think you'll ultimately find that the knives came out so quickly for Spacey because everybody knew already. Just like everybody knew he was gay but nobody ever talked about it because he didn't want it known due to potential career effects. He had power because he made people money, and once that went away he couldn't prevent everyone turning on him. After all, they were loyal to his earning power, not to him.
I'm very much for due process before the hangings start, but I have a high confidence Spacey will turn out to have deserved his noose.
>just an accusation is enough to wreck someone's career and the continuation of any show they can't be edited out of.
This is a very bad thing, and Hollywood apparently has the attention span of a gnat with ADHD, because they've made more than a few movies about witch hunts decimating their community.
I'd love to see - at least in the case of a single accuser and not the entire community pointing fingers - a studio issuing a press release to the effect that they're going to take precautions against possible problems, but the accused will continue to work (should they choose to do so) until a court finds them guilty.
First, concentration of wealth means I was mostly making some Canadian or American insanely wealthy, now it's someone in China. I don't care where the billionaire lives any more than they care if I even exist.
Second, there's the problem of the Tragedy of the Commons. If I play by the rules, I'm a sucker. Everyone else gets a higher standard of living while the local economy drains slightly more slowly on the back of my willingness to pay a premium for a service I don't need... but if I decide I don't care about supporting the local economy, my standard of living gets a boost while my actions are ultimately just a drop of water in the ocean.
Individually, I have a lot more to lose than my individual effect on the communal economy is worth. Such issues can't be resolved by asking nicely, if we really care (as a society) we will require legislation at the national level to control the flow of capital.
And eventually China will raise their own standard of living enough that they will no longer be less expensive. Globalism will ultimately level all playing fields, it's just going to be a really shitty ride to get there unless you're already incredibly rich.
>NO, you can't find anything about me on Facebook.
So, you haven't heard of shadow profiles, then. Maybe your average Internet user can't find anything on you, but odds are someone at Facebook could look up all sorts of things about you.
> I defy anyone who says different
Well... I guess I'm defied, then. Doesn't change much, though. Facebook's still evil, you still shouldn't be confident they don't know a lot about you.
I'd rather not add to the local landfill if I don't have to, so if I was actually getting a 50% failure rate I'd stop shopping as I do.
I started off with an attitude of only buying things that were inexpensive enough I wouldn't be too upset if they went straight from the mailbox to the bin, but I have yet to get anything faulty from China. More cheaply made than anticipated because I never saw the thing in person first, yes... but overall I have far more buyer's regret from local purchases than over stuff I've purchased online from China.
I don't know if it's a thing in your area, but around here a significant percentage of newer apartment buildings (condo or otherwise) have the first floor hosting retail units.
Totally destroying retail presence means more sprawl with more people needing cars more frequently.
>Sadly - but not surprising - they increased most of their prices before the liquidation began, so their "20% off everything" is a faux bargain.
One of the reasons I've rarely shopped at Sears is that this has always been their business method for as long as I can recall. The deepest discount you tend to find at Sears still leaves you paying more than you would if you looked elsewhere.
They presented themselves as a mid-range department store, but operated like one of those shady junk stores with "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!" signs in their windows for years.
I have some sympathy for the low-level workers, but if there's anybody higher up the chain being hurt by this bankruptcy, it only warms my heart.
I was thinking something more like pad on my desk using a near-zero range inductive coupler to connect a smartphone or portable storage to my computer as soon as I put it down, or allowing two smartphones to talk back-to-back or edge-to-edge.
Here's the thing - I'm old. Not ancient, but middle-aged. So I'm probably not expected by younger people to be comfortable with the latest technologies and customs, right?
Except when I'm buying things I check Chinese websites first, because the stuff I could buy from a local retailer is generally 1/3 the cost if I get it direct from China, and it's generally the same damn item, only with a lot of unnecessary middle-men removed from the equation. Cutting out a couple of warehouses, an extra trip on a truck, and a whole chain of office and retail workers saves quite a bit of overhead.
For me that's usually just low end electronics stuff that'll fit in an international mail envelope, but there's all sorts of other stuff, too. Hell, you can get tailored clothing for the price of local off-the-rack stuff.
Retail is having the same issue the cable television industry is having - the economics have changed and they haven't found a way to adapt. I don't need to drive to a big box store or a mall to pay 300% more for something when with a bit of patience it comes to my house for a lot less.
I'd prefer a system for portable devices that required physical contact.
If there's so much data to move you can't hold the devices against each other reliably for long enough... you can probably find the time to sit them on a table.
I'm actually thinking of replacing my computer displays (work not gaming) with the Meta 2 AR headset. Saves a lot of desk real estate and it's 100% private. And really, really cool.
Still, there remains a tiny bit of motion detection lag, so I'm not sold just yet.
>This is a low-flying vehicle? Well, ballistic parachutes can deploy in something like 50 feet. It might not be a fun landing but a possible broken ankle is much better than going *splat*.
Which, unlike an airplane, won't have a glide path to choose a safe crash zone. Even with a chute, somebody below is probably getting squished since these things don't take off and land at large airports - they're going to be over dense urban areas all the time.
You will use a LOT more energy to move a human through the air (especially in something that hovers) than to roll them along a paved surface. It will simply cost more even if it works perfectly.
And it won't work perfectly, because the failure modes are worse, the weather restrictions greater, and you're still going to need a place to land and it won't be right next to your destination in most cases.
Cars win. If there's a futuristic transport mode, it's tiny self-driving vehicles that - perhaps - can hop on a rail car for long high-speed trips.
> I also think most of so called western democracies are oligarchies too
Canada is a parliamentary democracy symbolically serving a monarchy. The truth, of course, is that it's easier to run for office and easier to campaign if you have money, so rich people are more likely to get elected than the poor.
Are we a defacto oligarchy? I don't think so, at least not yet - you can still get elected to a seat in Parliament here even if you're poor and not connected to the elite.
>with automatic bots reverting changes like that how would I trust that other details can get fixed?
You need to apply one more level of effort before giving up - report the bots' bad behaviour and see if you can get the account they're using blocked by Wikipedia.
I wouldn't necessarily expect success... but if you care enough to contribute in the first place, you should try before you throw up your arms and walk away.
The objective is to repeat the lie more often than it is repudiated. For many people, hearing something said frequently by multiple sources is how they judge whether it's true or not, and then they tack on a value judgement of the sources based on their affiliation.
So... keep shouting. It's tiring, and sometimes they're just getting you distracted from the real issues, but continual rebuttal and counter-claim is the only way to go when you're dealing with people who scream 'nyahnyahnyah' while their fingers are firmly in their ears.
You're not going to change their minds, but if you can make just as loud a noise as they're making, you might stop them from gaining another convert. And eventually maybe even move on to dealing with the actual issues instead of the shouting match.
>It's an open secret the site is run by little dictators.
If you've ever been part of a volunteer-based club, you've seen this is human nature. Everyone gets together for a common cause, some people are better at some tasks than others and they gain respect... which then becomes central to their identity and they fight to protect their fiefdom.
It ultimately (usually) finds an equilibrium between significance and the required effort of any particular issue - the bigger the problem, the more likely the average member is willing to fight to fix it. Sometimes you get one or more assholes with more time and with an insane dedication level and everything falls apart.
Wikipedia is still the former in most cases - few people are fighting over the dry stuff, it's pretty detailed and accurate. Nobody's willing to start an edit war (or at least sustain one) over it. Something tells me that changes drastically once you get to a subject that has 'fans'.
It's an unimportant metric. Supposedly it has slightly fewer mistakes, which would be what really matters.
I'm not sure if Wikipedia already does this or not... but I'd love to see a 'confidence score' for articles based on the size and frequency of edits and counter-edits. It's generally the fighting between passionate idiots that introduces the most bias and falsehoods into such efforts, so a method for making those edit wars extremely visible and perhaps bringing them to the attention of higher-level moderators should be a thing.
I'd say ban edit-bots, but I'd love to see how you could do that while still allowing humans. Captcha systems just mean people with access to the right software have more power than those who can't easily bypass them.
>The Democrats have ardently opposed any sort of testing or requirements for any voters, asserting that any such test is inherently biased against minorities and the poor.
First, remove the unnecessary first two words and replace them with 'Politicians'. It doesn't matter whether or not you're right, it's simply unnecessary in this discussion to draw partisan lines that will make people choose sides regardless of the underlying argument.
Now, let's go with the last bit - "any such test is inherently biased against minorities and the poor". I would say any such testing is inherently biased against recent immigrants from non-Western nations and the poor... those who either have a language barrier or an education barrier.
OK. The solution is not to let them have a say anyway despite not being able to understand... it's to ensure they have adequate access to the resources required to pass the test. Free basic civics classes (day or night) for anyone who would otherwise qualify to vote.
Slashdot Mirror
You can also parse that 'which' as, "but a total success". That makes the sentence: "It's not a total success, but a total success isn't to be expected after Puerto Ricans' communications infrastructure suffered so much damage".
English isn't the most precise language in the world, simply one with high utility and popularity.
100% with you on this. Not only that, but hovering over your children filtering every experience they have is bad for them too. We call those parents 'helicopter parents' and complain about the bad behaviour of their 'snowflakes'.
I've taught my kids that inappropriate content exists and that I don't want them watching it. They also know that I will randomly pop my head in once in a while to see what's on their screens. And they know I have the ability to monitor their network connection if I want to do so. They generally stick to the kid-approved sources and it's nice to know that the content therein is well filtered so I don't have to be too concerned or vigilant.
I also know they're sneaking peaks at stuff they shouldn't. As long as it's not totally out of bounds and it's not happening frequently... so what? They're kids and that's part of growing up.
I don't know about you, but when I was a kid I saw a porn magazine or two when I was far younger than I should have been, and I occasionally snuck some inappropriate late-night television movies into my schedule when I was a bit older. I'm pretty sure I'm mostly undamaged.
Well, you're extremely defiant in your ignorance, so you have that going for you. Good for you!
At least I know why your friends aren't a risk of data leakage for you - with your social skills its unlikely you have any.
> Doesn't matter if it's true or not (just look at what happened to Kevin Spacey when he tried denying the accusations made against him in a diplomatic way that didn't involve going on the offensive)
I think you'll ultimately find that the knives came out so quickly for Spacey because everybody knew already. Just like everybody knew he was gay but nobody ever talked about it because he didn't want it known due to potential career effects. He had power because he made people money, and once that went away he couldn't prevent everyone turning on him. After all, they were loyal to his earning power, not to him.
I'm very much for due process before the hangings start, but I have a high confidence Spacey will turn out to have deserved his noose.
>just an accusation is enough to wreck someone's career and the continuation of any show they can't be edited out of.
This is a very bad thing, and Hollywood apparently has the attention span of a gnat with ADHD, because they've made more than a few movies about witch hunts decimating their community.
I'd love to see - at least in the case of a single accuser and not the entire community pointing fingers - a studio issuing a press release to the effect that they're going to take precautions against possible problems, but the accused will continue to work (should they choose to do so) until a court finds them guilty.
Seems like it'd be easy enough to declare a state of emergency and shoot a few farmers who start fires.
Two things:
First, concentration of wealth means I was mostly making some Canadian or American insanely wealthy, now it's someone in China. I don't care where the billionaire lives any more than they care if I even exist.
Second, there's the problem of the Tragedy of the Commons. If I play by the rules, I'm a sucker. Everyone else gets a higher standard of living while the local economy drains slightly more slowly on the back of my willingness to pay a premium for a service I don't need... but if I decide I don't care about supporting the local economy, my standard of living gets a boost while my actions are ultimately just a drop of water in the ocean.
Individually, I have a lot more to lose than my individual effect on the communal economy is worth. Such issues can't be resolved by asking nicely, if we really care (as a society) we will require legislation at the national level to control the flow of capital.
And eventually China will raise their own standard of living enough that they will no longer be less expensive. Globalism will ultimately level all playing fields, it's just going to be a really shitty ride to get there unless you're already incredibly rich.
>I don't have an account there
OK.
> no one I know is allowed to reference me there
And just how do you enforce that???
>NO, you can't find anything about me on Facebook.
So, you haven't heard of shadow profiles, then. Maybe your average Internet user can't find anything on you, but odds are someone at Facebook could look up all sorts of things about you.
> I defy anyone who says different
Well... I guess I'm defied, then. Doesn't change much, though. Facebook's still evil, you still shouldn't be confident they don't know a lot about you.
I'd rather not add to the local landfill if I don't have to, so if I was actually getting a 50% failure rate I'd stop shopping as I do.
I started off with an attitude of only buying things that were inexpensive enough I wouldn't be too upset if they went straight from the mailbox to the bin, but I have yet to get anything faulty from China. More cheaply made than anticipated because I never saw the thing in person first, yes... but overall I have far more buyer's regret from local purchases than over stuff I've purchased online from China.
I don't know if it's a thing in your area, but around here a significant percentage of newer apartment buildings (condo or otherwise) have the first floor hosting retail units.
Totally destroying retail presence means more sprawl with more people needing cars more frequently.
>Sadly - but not surprising - they increased most of their prices before the liquidation began, so their "20% off everything" is a faux bargain.
One of the reasons I've rarely shopped at Sears is that this has always been their business method for as long as I can recall. The deepest discount you tend to find at Sears still leaves you paying more than you would if you looked elsewhere.
They presented themselves as a mid-range department store, but operated like one of those shady junk stores with "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!" signs in their windows for years.
I have some sympathy for the low-level workers, but if there's anybody higher up the chain being hurt by this bankruptcy, it only warms my heart.
I was thinking something more like pad on my desk using a near-zero range inductive coupler to connect a smartphone or portable storage to my computer as soon as I put it down, or allowing two smartphones to talk back-to-back or edge-to-edge.
Here's the thing - I'm old. Not ancient, but middle-aged. So I'm probably not expected by younger people to be comfortable with the latest technologies and customs, right?
Except when I'm buying things I check Chinese websites first, because the stuff I could buy from a local retailer is generally 1/3 the cost if I get it direct from China, and it's generally the same damn item, only with a lot of unnecessary middle-men removed from the equation. Cutting out a couple of warehouses, an extra trip on a truck, and a whole chain of office and retail workers saves quite a bit of overhead.
For me that's usually just low end electronics stuff that'll fit in an international mail envelope, but there's all sorts of other stuff, too. Hell, you can get tailored clothing for the price of local off-the-rack stuff.
Retail is having the same issue the cable television industry is having - the economics have changed and they haven't found a way to adapt. I don't need to drive to a big box store or a mall to pay 300% more for something when with a bit of patience it comes to my house for a lot less.
I'd prefer a system for portable devices that required physical contact.
If there's so much data to move you can't hold the devices against each other reliably for long enough... you can probably find the time to sit them on a table.
I'm actually thinking of replacing my computer displays (work not gaming) with the Meta 2 AR headset. Saves a lot of desk real estate and it's 100% private. And really, really cool.
Still, there remains a tiny bit of motion detection lag, so I'm not sold just yet.
>This is a low-flying vehicle? Well, ballistic parachutes can deploy in something like 50 feet. It might not be a fun landing but a possible broken ankle is much better than going *splat*.
Which, unlike an airplane, won't have a glide path to choose a safe crash zone. Even with a chute, somebody below is probably getting squished since these things don't take off and land at large airports - they're going to be over dense urban areas all the time.
>What happend to good old Blame Canada?
They're not even a real country anyway.
You will use a LOT more energy to move a human through the air (especially in something that hovers) than to roll them along a paved surface. It will simply cost more even if it works perfectly.
And it won't work perfectly, because the failure modes are worse, the weather restrictions greater, and you're still going to need a place to land and it won't be right next to your destination in most cases.
Cars win. If there's a futuristic transport mode, it's tiny self-driving vehicles that - perhaps - can hop on a rail car for long high-speed trips.
> I also think most of so called western democracies are oligarchies too
Canada is a parliamentary democracy symbolically serving a monarchy. The truth, of course, is that it's easier to run for office and easier to campaign if you have money, so rich people are more likely to get elected than the poor.
Are we a defacto oligarchy? I don't think so, at least not yet - you can still get elected to a seat in Parliament here even if you're poor and not connected to the elite.
>with automatic bots reverting changes like that how would I trust that other details can get fixed?
You need to apply one more level of effort before giving up - report the bots' bad behaviour and see if you can get the account they're using blocked by Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I wouldn't necessarily expect success... but if you care enough to contribute in the first place, you should try before you throw up your arms and walk away.
The objective is to repeat the lie more often than it is repudiated. For many people, hearing something said frequently by multiple sources is how they judge whether it's true or not, and then they tack on a value judgement of the sources based on their affiliation.
So... keep shouting. It's tiring, and sometimes they're just getting you distracted from the real issues, but continual rebuttal and counter-claim is the only way to go when you're dealing with people who scream 'nyahnyahnyah' while their fingers are firmly in their ears.
You're not going to change their minds, but if you can make just as loud a noise as they're making, you might stop them from gaining another convert. And eventually maybe even move on to dealing with the actual issues instead of the shouting match.
>It's an open secret the site is run by little dictators.
If you've ever been part of a volunteer-based club, you've seen this is human nature. Everyone gets together for a common cause, some people are better at some tasks than others and they gain respect... which then becomes central to their identity and they fight to protect their fiefdom.
It ultimately (usually) finds an equilibrium between significance and the required effort of any particular issue - the bigger the problem, the more likely the average member is willing to fight to fix it. Sometimes you get one or more assholes with more time and with an insane dedication level and everything falls apart.
Wikipedia is still the former in most cases - few people are fighting over the dry stuff, it's pretty detailed and accurate. Nobody's willing to start an edit war (or at least sustain one) over it. Something tells me that changes drastically once you get to a subject that has 'fans'.
It's an unimportant metric. Supposedly it has slightly fewer mistakes, which would be what really matters.
I'm not sure if Wikipedia already does this or not... but I'd love to see a 'confidence score' for articles based on the size and frequency of edits and counter-edits. It's generally the fighting between passionate idiots that introduces the most bias and falsehoods into such efforts, so a method for making those edit wars extremely visible and perhaps bringing them to the attention of higher-level moderators should be a thing.
I'd say ban edit-bots, but I'd love to see how you could do that while still allowing humans. Captcha systems just mean people with access to the right software have more power than those who can't easily bypass them.
>The Democrats have ardently opposed any sort of testing or requirements for any voters, asserting that any such test is inherently biased against minorities and the poor.
First, remove the unnecessary first two words and replace them with 'Politicians'. It doesn't matter whether or not you're right, it's simply unnecessary in this discussion to draw partisan lines that will make people choose sides regardless of the underlying argument.
Now, let's go with the last bit - "any such test is inherently biased against minorities and the poor". I would say any such testing is inherently biased against recent immigrants from non-Western nations and the poor... those who either have a language barrier or an education barrier.
OK. The solution is not to let them have a say anyway despite not being able to understand... it's to ensure they have adequate access to the resources required to pass the test. Free basic civics classes (day or night) for anyone who would otherwise qualify to vote.
Don't be like Trump - if you don't know what the hell you're talking about, stay quiet until you do.
There's 7.5 billion of us, increasing at more than 1% annually, and you think we're doing a good job of killing each other off???