Slashdot Mirror


User: boneglorious

boneglorious's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
152
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 152

  1. Re:Important but we can't change it on Recession, Tech Kill Middle-Class Jobs · · Score: 1

    (Sorry, I just realized that how I quoted "gets all the way there" looks like I'm trying to claim you said that exact phrase. I was contrasting with your phrase "only gets part way".)

  2. Re:Important but we can't change it on Recession, Tech Kill Middle-Class Jobs · · Score: 1

    I guess I'm not sure what you mean by "gets all the way there". It sounds like you mean, not only is all work doable by machines, but machines or their output are accessible to all in such a fashion that they can get all of their basic needs met. I'm not even sure what that would mean. Will most people have manufacturing machines to produce goods for barter? Will most people have machines that produce most of what they use? Will people own machines which will earn salaries for the owners? Will everything be free?

  3. Widget Workshop on Learning Rocket Science With Video Games · · Score: 1

    Widget Workshop was a great mac game back in the 90s which gave you a lot of components to build things, ranging from electronic circuits to mechanical machines.

  4. Re:Always wondered... on 7 Jailed In 'Kidney For iPad' Case In China · · Score: 1

    You mean every rich one who needs an organ transplant getting an organ transplant. That's why the playing field is so uneven: it would be a direct transfer of health to the wealthy.

  5. Re:encouragement on Ask Slashdot: Finding Work Over 60? · · Score: 1

    Oh --- just in case you're reading this, dad, I know that's not all you do! It's just the part I like describing the most!

  6. encouragement on Ask Slashdot: Finding Work Over 60? · · Score: 1

    My dad was laid of after many years as a developer/technical writer/manager at the same company when he was in his early 60s. After roughly a 6-month job search, he found a great position as an "automation engineer" (he basically wanders around looking at people's processes and then automates the boring parts for them). So hang in there, it can be done. If you just start from the assumption that you have to prove to them you've gotten wiser and smarter with age rather than getting "set in your ways", that could probably help.

  7. Re:supremacy clause on Do Recreational Drugs Help Programmers? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sure, this isn't 'the end of it, but these kinds of events are symbolic of the direction the country is moving. A few states trying it out here and there, pretty soon Iowa will be doing it and then it will be all over.

  8. R. Buckminster Fuller approves! on Buckyballs Throws In the Towel · · Score: 1

    The estate's claim that the use of the name infringes on their rights (which is a patently ridiculous claim, in my view) is apparently quite consistent with R. Buckminster Fuller's views --- supposedly he would claim credit to his student's work but saw himself as simply protecting his own intellectual property by so doing.

  9. Re:Loon vs. fruitcake. on Actual Final Third Party Debate Tonight · · Score: 1

    The fruitcakes want to turn right, the loons want to run left, but the "moderates" think we should go straight ahead.

    I'm confused --- how did you know which party was represented by the loon and which by the fruitcake?

  10. Re:IQ tests are getting dumbed down... on Are We Getting Smarter? Rising IQ Scores In the Twenty-First Century · · Score: 1

    It's more a comment on society in 1951, since that's when the story on which it was based was published...

  11. Re:IQ tests are getting dumbed down... on Are We Getting Smarter? Rising IQ Scores In the Twenty-First Century · · Score: 1

    Well, seeing as how Idiocracy is fiction, I really don't see that as good evidence of anything. And even if IQ tests are really being dumbed down now --- which I doubt --- I doubt it was occurring already in 1951, when the short story on which Idiocracy was based was written.

  12. Re:AIs, not robots on Social Robots May Gain Legal Rights, Says MIT Researcher · · Score: 1

    I don't know, I think the definition of AI and the reason some things "have rights" are actually difficult enough concepts that it isn't self-evident that AI have rights.

  13. Re:Holy crap... on Social Robots May Gain Legal Rights, Says MIT Researcher · · Score: 1

    Hehehe, you haven't heard of the famout MIT Media Lab yet? AC, meet famous MIT Media Lab, home of the Next Big Idea, whatever it is!

  14. Re:Media Researcher? on Social Robots May Gain Legal Rights, Says MIT Researcher · · Score: 1

    I agree with your question, but even if she researched robotics, it wouldn't mean anything. I can't tell you how many grandiose papers exactly like this I have read from early-career social roboticists (many of whom couldn't qualify as roboticists without qualifying the term, granted) seeking tenure. And then someone writes an article suggesting it somehow has policy implications? Next, please.

  15. Re:Click-bait it most certainly is on Social Robots May Gain Legal Rights, Says MIT Researcher · · Score: 1

    Any researcher with a narrative could write such a paper, and social roboticist peer reviewers eat it up, so why does the summary make it sound as if there are policy implications?

  16. Re:political power advantage on US Census Bureau Offers Public API For Data Apps · · Score: 1

    Yes, or they could use one many widely-available population density maps. This is going to make lots of cool things easier, and I really doubt its going to make terrorist plotting much easier than it already is.

  17. Re:Relative Poverty Value? on Economists: US Poverty On Track To Hit Highest Level Since 1960s · · Score: 1

    You make a good point if you look at that question on the surface, but I'd argue that the question can't really be answered unless we first ask, "What does it mean to eradicate poverty?" Studies have shown that people feel poor if they are poorer than the people around them. That's why a lot of people feel poor in our society even if they are living in luxury compared to someone on the other side of the globe, or even just on the other side of town. It seems to me like we are trying to increase standards of living consumeristically, and I think that's doomed to failure, plus it often makes me question "What's the point?" Because once we eradicate poverty at one level, there'll be another level to eradicate it on, even if everyone's actually living in comparative luxury. Now, I'm not arguing that poor people are living in luxury, only that I don't see the current methods being successful because even if they were, they would still feel comparatively poor and thus be subjected to the negative health outcomes associated with being under stress due to lack of control, uncertainty, etc.

    What if we tried a different tack and, in addition to forms of support like rent assistance, had more widespread programs that would help people, say, develop community gardens and thus be producers (albeit only for themselves and perhaps their communities, unless they got really industrious), thereby raising their quality of living by 1) increasing their access to quality food and 2) helping them to develop a feeling of pride in what they had produced for themselves and their communities? And if people in a community produced different things, they could have engage in bartering and raise their standards of living still higher. Well, we can't do this because it wouldn't be "efficient" --- and of course because it would threaten the businesses at the top.

  18. Re:1960s vs 2010s on Economists: US Poverty On Track To Hit Highest Level Since 1960s · · Score: 1

    "More women with more buying power means more demand and more work to fill that demand. Adding more workers should make everyone wealthier. If it doesn't that means there is something terribly wrong with the economy."

    Ding ding ding --- we have a winner! I continually hear people claiming that if everyone made a living wage --- so not even if we raised minimum wage by government, but if every worker got together and said, 'hey, let's all refuse to work for wages we can't live on so they have to pay us enough to live on' --- that the economy would break down completely. Whether or not that's true, if a significant proportion of economic participants believe that the economy would literally break down if everyone received a fair exchange for the valuable work they do, whether that's programming software or emptying garbage cans or cleaning hotel rooms, that says to me that there is something terribly wrong with the economy. And the number of people who vote Republican suggests to me that this is not just anecdotal among the people I know, but that a significant proportion of regular joes have been tricked into believing this.

  19. Re:Official MinTruth Statement on Economists: US Poverty On Track To Hit Highest Level Since 1960s · · Score: 1

    But just in case you happen to be a Ron Paul supporter, I should needle you by mentioning that, according to his website, Ron Paul will be proud to be the president who finally turns out the lights on the irs for good. (and I don't think he means that he will have roboticized the entire facility so lights are no longer needed for business as usual).

  20. Re:Official MinTruth Statement on Economists: US Poverty On Track To Hit Highest Level Since 1960s · · Score: 1

    Okay, I concede that it could be a mistake to run on the "get rid of the irs platform." But I submit that the reason for it is that simplifying taxes --- not necessarily lowering them, but simplifying them to at least the point of non-absurdity so we can actually talk reasonably about how much we are paying --- would render the irs only necessary in greatly reduced form, if at all. And then we can talk reasonably about how much we are/should be paying.

  21. Re:Poverty? Gimme a break. on Economists: US Poverty On Track To Hit Highest Level Since 1960s · · Score: 1

    But jobs are continually being dumbed down to that level. In my town, driving a bus is a student-level job. I don't want some student who only got his license two years ago and is thinking about his chem exam driving a BUS. I want a freaking career driver.

  22. Re:Poverty? Gimme a break. on Economists: US Poverty On Track To Hit Highest Level Since 1960s · · Score: 1

    And plenty of places will happily schedule you to juuuuust under the limit of hours where they'd have to start paying benefits, too. So you get no overtime and no benefits, yet you end up working more than a full-time job.

  23. Re:Official MinTruth Statement on Economists: US Poverty On Track To Hit Highest Level Since 1960s · · Score: 1

    I think you have to actually read his tax reform plan for that to make sense.

  24. Re:Anec-data on Chemical That Affects Biological Clock Offers New Diabetes Treatment · · Score: 1

    (And to be clear, I'm not arguing that there is no cause-and-effect between overeating and obesity, but my anec-data tells me that at least some people that are clinically obese don't eat or worse than more than usual, they just have a completely different body type. So I'm just arguing against applying your assertion to *all* obese people. And your methodology.)

  25. Anec-data on Chemical That Affects Biological Clock Offers New Diabetes Treatment · · Score: 1

    So that's two anecdotes from a pair of the closest relatives you can get...Ima need a few before I find your study to be statistically significant.