You'd be surprised I think. Many like to think that science exists in a vacuum and is totally empirical, clinical, and devoid of all humanity. It isn't.
I used to have to explain this geological map to people who would assume that everything in it was sacrosanct. However at the core it is based on survey's, by different people, over many decades, using different methods, much of which had to do with what communities were around at the time, and how easy the terrain was to access (i.e. roads etc...), and much of it came from water drilling core sampling, and the types of deposits that were identified and categorized were ones of what they were looking for at the time, and were interested in, and things like ease of access both in location, and in strata would have impacts on how it was prioritized, etc... More than just a bunch of numbers and figures on a map. It is all about data and how it is collected. Most of what most people call scientific method is how that data is interpreted, however it is the data itself at the core which is more fundamental to it's potential use.
That said, it is important to look at what we call things and in what context. It was only a few months ago there was the big stories about people using some pretty specific "scientific" wording in regards to admissibility of "bite mark" , "hair analysis" and other sorts of "evidence"... we we now all know what a complete load of unscientific garbage.
Not totally defending Trump, as what he is likely doing is just ideological partisan BS to pander to his base, but it is good to review what we call things in the scientific community from now and again. At the very least this likely ill conceived idea will force people to take a longer stronger critical look and be forced to defend their assertions that it should be called something, which isn't all a bad thing (as Trump will eventually be gone... we assume anyway).
Bubbles like this are basically just gambling at this point. Sure some idealists might believe in bitcoin, but I'd guess most of those investing are simply looking for the next get rich quick scheme. I have no doubt some will. Some very few will. It is like a lotto ticket, but a bit different in that the earlier you bought your ticket, the greater your chances of winning.
You mention the.COM bubble. Indeed as an investment analogy it isn't wrong. I've seen these investment pundits out there giving out their sage investment and business advice, and hey they must be knowledgeable because they are worth many millions or even billions. Then you look into their background a bit and see that they basically owned some sketchy dotcom website that they sold for hundreds of millions of dollars to some stupid established company with too much money just before the bubble burst. At which point the useless turd was exposed for what it was, and the loss written off. Then said person essentially invests their now massive wealth into safe investments now that they can leverage their increased wealth. That said, those people exist, and those people investing in BC would like nothing more that to become the next one of those guys. That said, for everyone of of those people who got lucky (and by lucky, usually also did something unscrupulous along the way like misstated accounting prior to sale for example), there were probably many thousands of losers.
The problem is Canada is there is very little competition, and what does exist seems to actively collude and price fix (depending on your definitions I suppose). From my simple perspective, just go to Bell or Rogers (or one of their subsidiaries) websites. You'll see the exact same plans, for the exact same prices. The new player Wind, might actually shake some things up, however they have a pretty limited market share and is only really available is certain markets anyway. I am not surprised in the least that Canada has the most expensive rates. While I think the CRTC tries every now and again, they are full of former industry shills, and get bullied around half the time by the active industry. What is even worse is the roaming rules. I know I went overseas a number of years ago with a large mixed nationality group, and they were all aghast at what I paid, and what my limitations were. Basically I couldn't use my phone at all without Wifi someplace. Now that said, with the new unlocking measures being put into place in 2018 at the behest of the CRTC, that should at least help in that regard.
However even to the point of leasing lines (which is internet not mobile but you mentioned it), there was a case brought before the CRTC in Ontario of TekSavvy an independent ISP and Bell, about what Bell charged for the leased line, and the throttling of said line. As I recall TekSavvy lost, where basically the Bell argument was that they provide shitty expensive service to their customers, so if Teksavvy were to use their lines, they would be obligated to provide the same shitty expensive service...
Anyway as I said, it is slowly getting better in Canada, but it is sloooow, likely because of no real competition and the few companies that do exist fight the CRTC tooth and nail, lobby government, etc...
Even outside of the whole lens and frame racket with Luxottica artificially keeping prices high there is the optometrist racket, at least here in Canada. There was an owner of an online glasses place here in Canada that is currently in prison because the optometrist lobby made sure the laws will put him there.
I'd say almost without exception every single optometrist is associated with a store that sells lenses and frames. They get a cut from every sale they reference. If you get a prescription from them, they will actively try to sell you stuff from their store. Some (although they are not supposed to) will not even give you your prescription personally, and will rather only pass it on to their store for you to use. Some you have to strongly ask for it, and they will argue with you about it and tell you all sorts of horror stories of people buying things online etc... They will make it as difficult as they can for you to use your actual prescription because they make money off sales. They likely make little money off the simple eye exam and prescription itself. So this activity while illegal and unethical is widespread and pervasive.
So the fact they the writer made up a fake prescription to prove a point doesn't really bother me about the fact that it worked. In fact I would be a bit more concerned if it didn't. That said it should be the consumer's responsibility to get a good prescription from a certified optometrist , not the onus of the company providing the lenses to check to make sure they did.
Anyway the whole industry from so called doctors who are supposed to be of high moral standing with a code of ethics to the sales of the Luxottica monopoly is so shady, scammy, and a racket I literally couldn't care less about the writers concerns. They are all a bunch of people that are taking advantage of folks with a medical condition which requires aids to fscking see, and they are all profiteering off the backs of people who have little choice of paying whatever they these jerks say they should pay, or not being able to see. I've worn glasses my whole life, with a pretty severe prescription, and regularly pay 700-800$ for glasses, which god forbid you ever break, scratch, or lose them as you are going to have to replace them out of pocket. Anyway I'm pretty sure the general public has about zero sympathy for these bums at this point.
While not having government and corporate bank controls over you currency sounds appealing (and it is from a certain perspective), there are some obvious draw backs. No one has any regulatory control to try and manage what is going on.
I think a interesting example if you can stretch the analogy a bit is Greece and the Euro. One can argue about the strengths of the creation of the Euro, but Greece certainly illustrated one of the drawbacks. Greece like many others, by accepting the Euro also accepts a loss of control over their own currency. Had they their own currency, they could have devalued it or done other fiscal measures to help manage their debt problem. However without that control they were pretty powerless to do anything about it, other than to threaten to leave and have Germany bail them out with even more debt.
This is a problem with countries and any widespread usage of any cryptocurrency, at least if they ever start getting used as an actual currency in the mainstream and not just a weird "investment" vehicle. Not having any control over its value, or any way to influence it may cause some issues down the road. I'm not really sure if any of the current offerings have legs enough to do that, but given the progress on this front it isn't inconceivable that eventually one will get traction and become dominant. At which point world finance at a macro scale could start to become very interesting...
Nothing wrong with the cloud, but as you say not only is the idea that it will improve security laughable (likely the opposite actually), but that is will solve all the governments IT problems, specifically that of costs is equally laughable.
As someone who works in the industry I get this question all the time. Why is it so expensive to do IT work in Government as opposed to private industry? Sure some of that is bureaucracy and waste, but likely little more than what exists in any very large organization including private industry. Certainly one problem is how funding is assigned (yearly, with little guarantee in many cases after that, making any large IT project which will take multiple years challenging), and additionally the fact that typically the election cycle swings between opposing ideologies, meaning not only every couple years do you have direction coming down from above constantly changing, but with partisan politics, direction to actively sabotage whatever they predecessor did so they cannot take credit for it during the next election cycle. None of that is really IT related, or have anything to do with the folks that work hard in the civil service. However on top of all of that, is the fact that government is held to a much HIGHER standard than private industry, least of which is to ensure you are getting a good return for taxpayer dollars. Not only in security and accountability, but in IT standards must be followed, and what processes must be done. That accountability also includes extreme procurement processes so as to try and be fair to everyone etc... and can border on ridiculous. I've seen projects with longer procurement processes than actually project time. All of that stuff takes overhead. Another directly related to the security question is privacy. Not only is government held to a MUCH higher account for privacy, in many cases government is required to collect a lot of mandatory information from people that private industry just would not. Even the idea of putting a lot of this information in the "cloud", which really just means on someone else's servers is a bit unsettling. To be sure there are advantages to a cloud framework, but you also give up a lot of things including a lot of controls. Sure you can outline a lot of things in the agreement, but when stuff "happens", even if the agreement wasn't upheld, who do you think will ultimately get the blame? Lastly on the topic of "why is costs so much" is that government in an attempt to save money, but probably more so to look smaller (in terms of employees), pretty much outsources just about everything to consultants and private industry anyway. Not only do they charge through the teeth, they know government isn't going to default on them and that they are going to get paid, so these esteemed private industry contractors drag it out for as long as possible and suckle at the teet like parasites.
So in short, while cloud technology may help in some regard in certain situations, it is hardly a cure all for what ails government IT. Most of which isn't really technical or how much people get paid, or general waste or ineptitude but rather entails the fundamental difference between what is government VS private industry. For some time now there has been pressure for government to behave more like private industry, which I always found funny because intrinsically they are different, and if you think about it a bit beyond simple ideology you probably wouldn't want it to either.
If your staff doesn't follow your business rules, your business rules are not enforced, or your business rules are applied inconsistently, then having any sort of automated system not only is pretty difficult, but it isn't going to fix your problem. Typically in those situations you have to make the system so flexible so as to be able to handle all the inconsistent business rules, however that also means you letting loose the four horsemen of the user apocalypse on your data. Further complicated when the folks who are responsible for creating and/or enforcing said business rules don't or can't fix them for a verity reasons.
I wouldn't call it the biggest mistake, as this is more of an ongoing thing that just makes things difficult and unwieldy, not necessarily a corporate killer if you will as plenty of organizations limp along as they go.
Soooo
I'd say the biggest management mistake I've ever seen (and yes, I came out and honestly said my piece, but was ignored of course) is that of integration. Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against integration, in fact I love integration. However this was about management saving money. While it might save money over the long term, also adding a massive amount of complexity isn't really going to help your short term costs.
So our organization had about 30 custom applications many of which could fall into the legacy category (i.e. ancient and held together with duct tape and bailing twine). I manage a handful of them. I've been trying to replace some of them for about 15 years or so... However generally speaking how this would go, is we would propose replacement, give a figure, which would be rejected, we'd come up with a different plan for less, propose that, and get rejected. Typically it would be a couple million dollars, and we'd be able to get it under a million using some COTS rather than a full custom application. Keep in mind each of these applications cost many millions of 25+ years ago dollars when they were first built. At any rate bottom line that is what happened, and we were told we can't afford to spend 30 million dollars replacing 30 applications (never mind we were only proposing the replacement of a couple).
Anyway someone sold the management on building a "super system" (which in of itself should have been a red flag to people), whereby rather than replacing 30 individual systems, create one "super" system that does everything (though they later said 80% was acceptable) that the 30 previously did. Now some of the systems were pretty similar, and did similar things (abet with some different specific business rules), and there was certainly some benefits to being able to leverage the data in the other systems which currently didn't really talk to each other very much, so on the surface it made sense, and I would agree had many benefits. Management was also sold on the fact that it was to be a fraction of the cost because it would be able to leverage common components, re-use code, and additionally over time development costs would go down as you could do shared development work across the system.
That last part is the piece I didn't quite agree with. I tried to say, that yes there would be those benefits, however there would also be adding a huge amount of complexity. Having shared resources is great for example, however they also have to be managed properly and that all takes overhead. I went so far as to say all they are going to end up doing is rather than spending 30 million on 30 individual applications, they are just going to end up spending 30 million on one application. There would be benefits to doing so, but a cost savings (at least in terms of development) isn't going to really be one of them (maintenance is another matter). However they were sold on the idea, were not going to listen to someone who while had a lot of experience with the business and the applications, wasn't exactly senior IT management.
Anyway they started building the system, and decided to begin small and sim
You'll be waiting awhile, like long past you and I are in the ground. Much of what you are talking about is not currently possible, nor will be possible anytime in the near future.
#2 is reality.
That said, the real spaceship "goals" are worthy on their own, but you don't need to actually build a spaceship to do any of them, or at least proof of concept.
One that I've always sort of thought about with all this talk about the moon and mars, is actually taking a serious stab at a closed loop environmental system, but here on earth where it is massively cheaper, and more controlled. There have been several attempts over the years, but no real successes. 1,2,5 are all somewhat related, but would also have terrestrial positive spin offs, so again focus on that as opposed to putting it in a ship. 3 is the only thing that is possible, but just expensive, and why bother unless you figure the rest of the stuff out. Better to use #2, and re-focus what money you save on R&D on the rest of the list. The gravity well is our enemy, and the support requirements for life over time are great.
Not sure if this will actually prove or explain anything, but here it goes.
It used to also be the case that a family only needed one bread winner. You could support a family with a good wage. That seems to have changed, where in many cases it may be more important now that both parents be in the workforce. Now I will not pretend that this was uniform, women have worked since the dawn of time, I am only speaking generally, say middle class.
This dates back to WW2, and all the men going to war. As a result as many are aware women were asked to fulfill a lot of workforce roles they might not have been accustomed to in the past. As a result when the war was over, and men returned to work, while many women left the workforce many stayed. You pretty much doubled your workforce. As a result (and also with women making generally less than men) due to simple economics, that increase in the number of workers lowers the amount being paid to do the same job. Over time as even more women enter the workforce, this intensifies further stagnating wages. This has led to the afore mentioned reality that both parents need to work in order to support a family in modern times. Who are the winners here? Certainly not men, and not even really women (empowerment aside), but rather corporations and those few at the top able to take advantage of the situation, further escalating wealth inequality.
Now I am certainly not saying that the above is the *only* cause of both wage related issues, composition of male/female workforce, and wealth inequality in general, however it is one of the primary causes (of which there are probably several others). The basic premise being that adjusting from one workforce to a more numerous (inclusive of lower paying) is going to have a predictable and obvious impact to both wages and the resulting feedback loop of further pressure for more workers to support a family.
Put in that context, next time you see an old fat white rich guy, and assume they they are against women's libs, you might be surprised. The more women they can get in the workforce, the larger the pool or potential workers, the less they pay for the same work, the more money in their pocket. Surprised they aren't out in droves at rallies holding a sign with a shit eating grin...
I think what he is getting at is that it has no intrinsic value other than as an idea anymore.
The original idea of bitcoin was a currency. It has failed at that purpose.
What it has turned into is a speculative investment market based on what is essentially nothing.
So in a sense it is pyramid like in that your chances of making any money wholly depend on continued speculation. In addition specifically because there is a fixed amount (which artificially imbues it with "value" due to "scarcity"), that means those that got into it early are likely the only ones that are going to make any money, while those who jump on the bandwagon later are the ones that are going to eventually loose their shirts, much like a pyramid scheme. That said, it isn't exactly like a pyramid or a multi-level marketing BS. It is by it's own a new thing (and already there are copycats), which I can only assume in the future people will refer to an all new not quite illegal gray market framework for profit scam. No doubt it will inherent the "Bitcoin" brand as what they are called. We're witnessing the future of a new type of scammy construct. Heck prior to 2008 no one in the public had really heard about derivatives and debt artificial investment constructs as a way to make (on in the case of the eventual crash, lose) money.
So like a pyramid scheme I have no doubt a small number of investors will make out like bandits, however I see most people loosing. How long that is going to take is the kicker. It is ALL about perception (because the product itself has no real intrinsic value), which if you have enough users and momentum and sheer will to see it work can continue for a longer time than you think it might before it eventually fails. Perfect example is real estate prices, there are a lot of players and parties involved that have a significant motivation to keep things rolling along, so they will, until no matter what or how many folks try to prop it up will usually catastrophically fail. The big difference is that land and or houses is a physical thing that is going to have some sort of real value eventually no matter what. Bitcoin doesn't even have that. Another example is what is the difference between a "true" pyramid scheme and a multilevel marking scam. Bitcoin is "closer" to being a pyramid scheme as there is absolutely nothing of value other than others propping it up as valuable. A multilevel marketing scam tries to skirt this legality by offering "products" that seem to have value, but in reality do not. They are simply there to get around laws preventing it. Things like vitamins and coffee etc... which while they might sell some token amount is all about the financial transactions and getting more people to join (i.e. invest) so as to prop up the value for those already in the scam. So as you see, while bitcoin is different, it isn't all that different. Either way, I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.
Originally I thought the idea was a good one, simply from a privacy perspective. We are moving away from cash, and into more digital transactions, but by doing so you give up a lot of autonomy as everything you do can be tracked, traced, marketed, examined etc... Which means things like cash will never really go away. Moving towards a much more digital transaction world, the world does really need some sort of crypocurrency to protect consumers against being exploited by just about everyone involved... Too bad that it appears bitcoin is an utter failure at that. Steam said it best the other day (which isn't the only reason, but a good one), is that as a currency it is simply too volatile to be used to buy things anymore. I suspect if a new type is to be introduced and be successful, it will have to build in protections somehow to keep speculators at bay. That said fiscal speculation is a larger problem that haunts all sorts of investment vehicles and is likely a tough nut to crack.
Re-structuring excuses. GE starting layoffs like a year ago. I know my city lost several hundred jobs already before this announcement. This is merely justification to continue.
Are gas turbines all that different from wind turbines? Scale to be sure, and the component that burns fuel. In the end it is a spinney magnet that generates electricity.
Better yet, make it play one of the newer games that is all about micro transactions and pay to play.
Pretty sure the AI will come to the determination that they are retarded and refuse to play anymore. Either that or IBM or whoever will have their profit margins cut by a massive credit card bill...
Then again release enough AI's onto the market grinding an infinite number of games for credits, buying up all the good stuff, making the game, and the micro transactions useless might actually have a positive impact by influencing game makers to stop doing that anymore.
If they really cared they would update their naming scheme rather than depending on consumers to sift though a spec page to see if it is the correct version or not.
Additionally they could abandon their ridiculous naming scheme altogether that they have been following for years and actually name their products something meaningful rather than a bunch of nonsense. That said, when your only competition is nVidia which uses their own equally baffling naming scheme I guess there isn't much pressure to change. They'll both just confuse their customers for PROFIT!
I've bee around computers and hardware my whole life (longer than most, at least insofar as video cards have actually existed), I work in a computer related field, I build my own rigs, and EVEN I when it comes time to pull out the old and buy and new one, or build a new rig pretty much sigh "Oh boy here we go, I'm gonna have to sift through the marketing BS and the rest of the detritus that is the video card industry/market"... Never mind they both have a busted reputation of cheating at all sorts of levels in the past with whatever offering they have. Need some new players to freshen up the place, no more Matrox or 3dx, or anything else out there. It seems the only competition the two current companies have is who can behave worse...
As par for the course I didn't RTFA. So I don't know if the title and summary have nothing to do with each other and follow the inflammatory trend of clickbait or not.
However I'm not sure what "New Evidence" they are referring to other than someone built a simulated model. A model demonstrating something isn't exactly evidence. Depending on the parameters, you can build a model to show just about anything you want to show. If you are trying to show ice tectonics by using a model, I'm pretty sure you can do it. Now if there was some new parameter that they used in said model to prove something that might be a different story.
I think all houses have roofs. I drew a picture of a house with a roof. Ipso Facto this is proof that all houses have roofs. Ugh. Go Science!
For bonus points he should attached a solar panel to the car to keep the batteries charged, put a camera in it and the ability to transmit signal.
As most people know, just about everything on the Tesla can be controlled remotely. Now I know the range to earth would be no good. However if they put it into orbit, and eventually years later, get another spacecraft there to relay commands.... They could potentially start the engine, turn on the radio (well play music anyway, reception might be a bit spotty on Mars), flash the lights, etc... Maybe with some careful use of the window washer fluid, alter the cars rotation or something. Anyway a secondary and even more hilarious PR stunt... Though I guess without air music wouldn't work, and without satellites the GPS wouldn't either. Anyway simply having it flash it's high-beams at the arriving spaceship would be kind of funny... For even extra credit, don't tell anyone you're going to do it and see the reaction!
Just a guess, but I'd say he wasn't playing 140 games of golf prior to the tracking policy.
It sounds like this guy was close to retirement, upper brass decided to issue everyone PDA for the express purpose of tracking individual movements. He complained about it, likely due to the invasion of privacy. He was forced to use it anyway. So it seems he decided to show them how stupid he thought their idea was, and how easy it was to circumvent it using a chip bag, while at the same time giving them the finger by going and playing golf all day...
He eventually got caught, and he probably expected them to find out, and got canned, which isn't unexpected, and I doubt he really was surprised. I'm sure he is probably laughing about the fact that it actually worked so long, playing 140 games of golf takes a fair amount of time I would expect! In the end, after so long, likely someone who works with him ran into him on the golf course and was bitter, or just as likely he was bragging about it to other staff further thumbing his nose at management, with predictable results.
"the veto ensures a toothlessness that is necessary for UN to perform its function", never heard it put that way, but it makes sense at least in a historical context.
At any rate, I see Russia's response as a pretty reasonable one. You can't ban something that doesn't actually exist yet. Even harder is to define exactly what that thing actually is without it actually existing. Depending on how nebulous your wording of what constitutes "autonomous" that could mean any number of things. I know we're all thinking of some Matrix AI type thing, but the reality is no government is going to hand over control like that of any significant military asset like that. This could however impact technologies that say do target identification, and the like. Not all of it scary bad stuff either, when you think about all the friendly fire issues in the modern military past. The technologies could actually *save* lives.
Slashdot Mirror
You'd be surprised I think. Many like to think that science exists in a vacuum and is totally empirical, clinical, and devoid of all humanity. It isn't.
I used to have to explain this geological map to people who would assume that everything in it was sacrosanct. However at the core it is based on survey's, by different people, over many decades, using different methods, much of which had to do with what communities were around at the time, and how easy the terrain was to access (i.e. roads etc...), and much of it came from water drilling core sampling, and the types of deposits that were identified and categorized were ones of what they were looking for at the time, and were interested in, and things like ease of access both in location, and in strata would have impacts on how it was prioritized, etc... More than just a bunch of numbers and figures on a map. It is all about data and how it is collected. Most of what most people call scientific method is how that data is interpreted, however it is the data itself at the core which is more fundamental to it's potential use.
That said, it is important to look at what we call things and in what context. It was only a few months ago there was the big stories about people using some pretty specific "scientific" wording in regards to admissibility of "bite mark" , "hair analysis" and other sorts of "evidence"... we we now all know what a complete load of unscientific garbage.
Not totally defending Trump, as what he is likely doing is just ideological partisan BS to pander to his base, but it is good to review what we call things in the scientific community from now and again. At the very least this likely ill conceived idea will force people to take a longer stronger critical look and be forced to defend their assertions that it should be called something, which isn't all a bad thing (as Trump will eventually be gone... we assume anyway).
Bubbles like this are basically just gambling at this point. Sure some idealists might believe in bitcoin, but I'd guess most of those investing are simply looking for the next get rich quick scheme. I have no doubt some will. Some very few will. It is like a lotto ticket, but a bit different in that the earlier you bought your ticket, the greater your chances of winning.
You mention the .COM bubble. Indeed as an investment analogy it isn't wrong. I've seen these investment pundits out there giving out their sage investment and business advice, and hey they must be knowledgeable because they are worth many millions or even billions. Then you look into their background a bit and see that they basically owned some sketchy dotcom website that they sold for hundreds of millions of dollars to some stupid established company with too much money just before the bubble burst. At which point the useless turd was exposed for what it was, and the loss written off. Then said person essentially invests their now massive wealth into safe investments now that they can leverage their increased wealth. That said, those people exist, and those people investing in BC would like nothing more that to become the next one of those guys. That said, for everyone of of those people who got lucky (and by lucky, usually also did something unscrupulous along the way like misstated accounting prior to sale for example), there were probably many thousands of losers.
The problem is Canada is there is very little competition, and what does exist seems to actively collude and price fix (depending on your definitions I suppose). From my simple perspective, just go to Bell or Rogers (or one of their subsidiaries) websites. You'll see the exact same plans, for the exact same prices. The new player Wind, might actually shake some things up, however they have a pretty limited market share and is only really available is certain markets anyway. I am not surprised in the least that Canada has the most expensive rates. While I think the CRTC tries every now and again, they are full of former industry shills, and get bullied around half the time by the active industry. What is even worse is the roaming rules. I know I went overseas a number of years ago with a large mixed nationality group, and they were all aghast at what I paid, and what my limitations were. Basically I couldn't use my phone at all without Wifi someplace. Now that said, with the new unlocking measures being put into place in 2018 at the behest of the CRTC, that should at least help in that regard.
However even to the point of leasing lines (which is internet not mobile but you mentioned it), there was a case brought before the CRTC in Ontario of TekSavvy an independent ISP and Bell, about what Bell charged for the leased line, and the throttling of said line. As I recall TekSavvy lost, where basically the Bell argument was that they provide shitty expensive service to their customers, so if Teksavvy were to use their lines, they would be obligated to provide the same shitty expensive service...
Anyway as I said, it is slowly getting better in Canada, but it is sloooow, likely because of no real competition and the few companies that do exist fight the CRTC tooth and nail, lobby government, etc...
Even outside of the whole lens and frame racket with Luxottica artificially keeping prices high there is the optometrist racket, at least here in Canada. There was an owner of an online glasses place here in Canada that is currently in prison because the optometrist lobby made sure the laws will put him there.
I'd say almost without exception every single optometrist is associated with a store that sells lenses and frames. They get a cut from every sale they reference. If you get a prescription from them, they will actively try to sell you stuff from their store. Some (although they are not supposed to) will not even give you your prescription personally, and will rather only pass it on to their store for you to use. Some you have to strongly ask for it, and they will argue with you about it and tell you all sorts of horror stories of people buying things online etc... They will make it as difficult as they can for you to use your actual prescription because they make money off sales. They likely make little money off the simple eye exam and prescription itself. So this activity while illegal and unethical is widespread and pervasive.
So the fact they the writer made up a fake prescription to prove a point doesn't really bother me about the fact that it worked. In fact I would be a bit more concerned if it didn't. That said it should be the consumer's responsibility to get a good prescription from a certified optometrist , not the onus of the company providing the lenses to check to make sure they did.
Anyway the whole industry from so called doctors who are supposed to be of high moral standing with a code of ethics to the sales of the Luxottica monopoly is so shady, scammy, and a racket I literally couldn't care less about the writers concerns. They are all a bunch of people that are taking advantage of folks with a medical condition which requires aids to fscking see, and they are all profiteering off the backs of people who have little choice of paying whatever they these jerks say they should pay, or not being able to see. I've worn glasses my whole life, with a pretty severe prescription, and regularly pay 700-800$ for glasses, which god forbid you ever break, scratch, or lose them as you are going to have to replace them out of pocket. Anyway I'm pretty sure the general public has about zero sympathy for these bums at this point.
While not having government and corporate bank controls over you currency sounds appealing (and it is from a certain perspective), there are some obvious draw backs. No one has any regulatory control to try and manage what is going on.
I think a interesting example if you can stretch the analogy a bit is Greece and the Euro. One can argue about the strengths of the creation of the Euro, but Greece certainly illustrated one of the drawbacks. Greece like many others, by accepting the Euro also accepts a loss of control over their own currency. Had they their own currency, they could have devalued it or done other fiscal measures to help manage their debt problem. However without that control they were pretty powerless to do anything about it, other than to threaten to leave and have Germany bail them out with even more debt.
This is a problem with countries and any widespread usage of any cryptocurrency, at least if they ever start getting used as an actual currency in the mainstream and not just a weird "investment" vehicle. Not having any control over its value, or any way to influence it may cause some issues down the road. I'm not really sure if any of the current offerings have legs enough to do that, but given the progress on this front it isn't inconceivable that eventually one will get traction and become dominant. At which point world finance at a macro scale could start to become very interesting...
This is my sun. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Nothing wrong with the cloud, but as you say not only is the idea that it will improve security laughable (likely the opposite actually), but that is will solve all the governments IT problems, specifically that of costs is equally laughable.
As someone who works in the industry I get this question all the time. Why is it so expensive to do IT work in Government as opposed to private industry? Sure some of that is bureaucracy and waste, but likely little more than what exists in any very large organization including private industry. Certainly one problem is how funding is assigned (yearly, with little guarantee in many cases after that, making any large IT project which will take multiple years challenging), and additionally the fact that typically the election cycle swings between opposing ideologies, meaning not only every couple years do you have direction coming down from above constantly changing, but with partisan politics, direction to actively sabotage whatever they predecessor did so they cannot take credit for it during the next election cycle. None of that is really IT related, or have anything to do with the folks that work hard in the civil service. However on top of all of that, is the fact that government is held to a much HIGHER standard than private industry, least of which is to ensure you are getting a good return for taxpayer dollars. Not only in security and accountability, but in IT standards must be followed, and what processes must be done. That accountability also includes extreme procurement processes so as to try and be fair to everyone etc... and can border on ridiculous. I've seen projects with longer procurement processes than actually project time. All of that stuff takes overhead. Another directly related to the security question is privacy. Not only is government held to a MUCH higher account for privacy, in many cases government is required to collect a lot of mandatory information from people that private industry just would not. Even the idea of putting a lot of this information in the "cloud", which really just means on someone else's servers is a bit unsettling. To be sure there are advantages to a cloud framework, but you also give up a lot of things including a lot of controls. Sure you can outline a lot of things in the agreement, but when stuff "happens", even if the agreement wasn't upheld, who do you think will ultimately get the blame? Lastly on the topic of "why is costs so much" is that government in an attempt to save money, but probably more so to look smaller (in terms of employees), pretty much outsources just about everything to consultants and private industry anyway. Not only do they charge through the teeth, they know government isn't going to default on them and that they are going to get paid, so these esteemed private industry contractors drag it out for as long as possible and suckle at the teet like parasites.
So in short, while cloud technology may help in some regard in certain situations, it is hardly a cure all for what ails government IT. Most of which isn't really technical or how much people get paid, or general waste or ineptitude but rather entails the fundamental difference between what is government VS private industry. For some time now there has been pressure for government to behave more like private industry, which I always found funny because intrinsically they are different, and if you think about it a bit beyond simple ideology you probably wouldn't want it to either.
Worth repeating.
If your staff doesn't follow your business rules, your business rules are not enforced, or your business rules are applied inconsistently, then having any sort of automated system not only is pretty difficult, but it isn't going to fix your problem.
Typically in those situations you have to make the system so flexible so as to be able to handle all the inconsistent business rules, however that also means you letting loose the four horsemen of the user apocalypse on your data.
Further complicated when the folks who are responsible for creating and/or enforcing said business rules don't or can't fix them for a verity reasons.
I wouldn't call it the biggest mistake, as this is more of an ongoing thing that just makes things difficult and unwieldy, not necessarily a corporate killer if you will as plenty of organizations limp along as they go.
Soooo
I'd say the biggest management mistake I've ever seen (and yes, I came out and honestly said my piece, but was ignored of course) is that of integration. Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against integration, in fact I love integration. However this was about management saving money. While it might save money over the long term, also adding a massive amount of complexity isn't really going to help your short term costs.
So our organization had about 30 custom applications many of which could fall into the legacy category (i.e. ancient and held together with duct tape and bailing twine). I manage a handful of them. I've been trying to replace some of them for about 15 years or so... However generally speaking how this would go, is we would propose replacement, give a figure, which would be rejected, we'd come up with a different plan for less, propose that, and get rejected. Typically it would be a couple million dollars, and we'd be able to get it under a million using some COTS rather than a full custom application. Keep in mind each of these applications cost many millions of 25+ years ago dollars when they were first built. At any rate bottom line that is what happened, and we were told we can't afford to spend 30 million dollars replacing 30 applications (never mind we were only proposing the replacement of a couple).
Anyway someone sold the management on building a "super system" (which in of itself should have been a red flag to people), whereby rather than replacing 30 individual systems, create one "super" system that does everything (though they later said 80% was acceptable) that the 30 previously did. Now some of the systems were pretty similar, and did similar things (abet with some different specific business rules), and there was certainly some benefits to being able to leverage the data in the other systems which currently didn't really talk to each other very much, so on the surface it made sense, and I would agree had many benefits. Management was also sold on the fact that it was to be a fraction of the cost because it would be able to leverage common components, re-use code, and additionally over time development costs would go down as you could do shared development work across the system.
That last part is the piece I didn't quite agree with. I tried to say, that yes there would be those benefits, however there would also be adding a huge amount of complexity. Having shared resources is great for example, however they also have to be managed properly and that all takes overhead. I went so far as to say all they are going to end up doing is rather than spending 30 million on 30 individual applications, they are just going to end up spending 30 million on one application. There would be benefits to doing so, but a cost savings (at least in terms of development) isn't going to really be one of them (maintenance is another matter). However they were sold on the idea, were not going to listen to someone who while had a lot of experience with the business and the applications, wasn't exactly senior IT management.
Anyway they started building the system, and decided to begin small and sim
You'll be waiting awhile, like long past you and I are in the ground. Much of what you are talking about is not currently possible, nor will be possible anytime in the near future.
#2 is reality.
That said, the real spaceship "goals" are worthy on their own, but you don't need to actually build a spaceship to do any of them, or at least proof of concept.
One that I've always sort of thought about with all this talk about the moon and mars, is actually taking a serious stab at a closed loop environmental system, but here on earth where it is massively cheaper, and more controlled. There have been several attempts over the years, but no real successes. 1,2,5 are all somewhat related, but would also have terrestrial positive spin offs, so again focus on that as opposed to putting it in a ship. 3 is the only thing that is possible, but just expensive, and why bother unless you figure the rest of the stuff out. Better to use #2, and re-focus what money you save on R&D on the rest of the list. The gravity well is our enemy, and the support requirements for life over time are great.
Not sure if this will actually prove or explain anything, but here it goes.
It used to also be the case that a family only needed one bread winner. You could support a family with a good wage. That seems to have changed, where in many cases it may be more important now that both parents be in the workforce. Now I will not pretend that this was uniform, women have worked since the dawn of time, I am only speaking generally, say middle class.
This dates back to WW2, and all the men going to war. As a result as many are aware women were asked to fulfill a lot of workforce roles they might not have been accustomed to in the past. As a result when the war was over, and men returned to work, while many women left the workforce many stayed. You pretty much doubled your workforce. As a result (and also with women making generally less than men) due to simple economics, that increase in the number of workers lowers the amount being paid to do the same job. Over time as even more women enter the workforce, this intensifies further stagnating wages. This has led to the afore mentioned reality that both parents need to work in order to support a family in modern times. Who are the winners here? Certainly not men, and not even really women (empowerment aside), but rather corporations and those few at the top able to take advantage of the situation, further escalating wealth inequality.
Now I am certainly not saying that the above is the *only* cause of both wage related issues, composition of male/female workforce, and wealth inequality in general, however it is one of the primary causes (of which there are probably several others). The basic premise being that adjusting from one workforce to a more numerous (inclusive of lower paying) is going to have a predictable and obvious impact to both wages and the resulting feedback loop of further pressure for more workers to support a family.
Put in that context, next time you see an old fat white rich guy, and assume they they are against women's libs, you might be surprised. The more women they can get in the workforce, the larger the pool or potential workers, the less they pay for the same work, the more money in their pocket. Surprised they aren't out in droves at rallies holding a sign with a shit eating grin...
I think what he is getting at is that it has no intrinsic value other than as an idea anymore.
The original idea of bitcoin was a currency. It has failed at that purpose.
What it has turned into is a speculative investment market based on what is essentially nothing.
So in a sense it is pyramid like in that your chances of making any money wholly depend on continued speculation. In addition specifically because there is a fixed amount (which artificially imbues it with "value" due to "scarcity"), that means those that got into it early are likely the only ones that are going to make any money, while those who jump on the bandwagon later are the ones that are going to eventually loose their shirts, much like a pyramid scheme. That said, it isn't exactly like a pyramid or a multi-level marketing BS. It is by it's own a new thing (and already there are copycats), which I can only assume in the future people will refer to an all new not quite illegal gray market framework for profit scam. No doubt it will inherent the "Bitcoin" brand as what they are called. We're witnessing the future of a new type of scammy construct. Heck prior to 2008 no one in the public had really heard about derivatives and debt artificial investment constructs as a way to make (on in the case of the eventual crash, lose) money.
So like a pyramid scheme I have no doubt a small number of investors will make out like bandits, however I see most people loosing. How long that is going to take is the kicker. It is ALL about perception (because the product itself has no real intrinsic value), which if you have enough users and momentum and sheer will to see it work can continue for a longer time than you think it might before it eventually fails. Perfect example is real estate prices, there are a lot of players and parties involved that have a significant motivation to keep things rolling along, so they will, until no matter what or how many folks try to prop it up will usually catastrophically fail. The big difference is that land and or houses is a physical thing that is going to have some sort of real value eventually no matter what. Bitcoin doesn't even have that. Another example is what is the difference between a "true" pyramid scheme and a multilevel marking scam. Bitcoin is "closer" to being a pyramid scheme as there is absolutely nothing of value other than others propping it up as valuable. A multilevel marketing scam tries to skirt this legality by offering "products" that seem to have value, but in reality do not. They are simply there to get around laws preventing it. Things like vitamins and coffee etc... which while they might sell some token amount is all about the financial transactions and getting more people to join (i.e. invest) so as to prop up the value for those already in the scam. So as you see, while bitcoin is different, it isn't all that different. Either way, I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.
Originally I thought the idea was a good one, simply from a privacy perspective. We are moving away from cash, and into more digital transactions, but by doing so you give up a lot of autonomy as everything you do can be tracked, traced, marketed, examined etc... Which means things like cash will never really go away. Moving towards a much more digital transaction world, the world does really need some sort of crypocurrency to protect consumers against being exploited by just about everyone involved... Too bad that it appears bitcoin is an utter failure at that. Steam said it best the other day (which isn't the only reason, but a good one), is that as a currency it is simply too volatile to be used to buy things anymore. I suspect if a new type is to be introduced and be successful, it will have to build in protections somehow to keep speculators at bay. That said fiscal speculation is a larger problem that haunts all sorts of investment vehicles and is likely a tough nut to crack.
Re-structuring excuses. GE starting layoffs like a year ago. I know my city lost several hundred jobs already before this announcement. This is merely justification to continue.
Are gas turbines all that different from wind turbines? Scale to be sure, and the component that burns fuel. In the end it is a spinney magnet that generates electricity.
Vectoring
Interdiction
Counter-measure
Trajectory
Ordnance
Ranged
Yankee
I think the idea would be to have them on a ship, that is sitting next to NK.
You're just being paranoid...
Yeah, that's only because everyone is out to kill me.
No, that is just the NK early warning system.
Sir, apparently they had advance warning our missiles were inbound.
How is this possible?
They have corn.
Dear God!
Better yet, make it play one of the newer games that is all about micro transactions and pay to play.
Pretty sure the AI will come to the determination that they are retarded and refuse to play anymore. Either that or IBM or whoever will have their profit margins cut by a massive credit card bill...
Then again release enough AI's onto the market grinding an infinite number of games for credits, buying up all the good stuff, making the game, and the micro transactions useless might actually have a positive impact by influencing game makers to stop doing that anymore.
Exactly.
If they really cared they would update their naming scheme rather than depending on consumers to sift though a spec page to see if it is the correct version or not.
Additionally they could abandon their ridiculous naming scheme altogether that they have been following for years and actually name their products something meaningful rather than a bunch of nonsense. That said, when your only competition is nVidia which uses their own equally baffling naming scheme I guess there isn't much pressure to change. They'll both just confuse their customers for PROFIT!
I've bee around computers and hardware my whole life (longer than most, at least insofar as video cards have actually existed), I work in a computer related field, I build my own rigs, and EVEN I when it comes time to pull out the old and buy and new one, or build a new rig pretty much sigh "Oh boy here we go, I'm gonna have to sift through the marketing BS and the rest of the detritus that is the video card industry/market"... Never mind they both have a busted reputation of cheating at all sorts of levels in the past with whatever offering they have. Need some new players to freshen up the place, no more Matrox or 3dx, or anything else out there. It seems the only competition the two current companies have is who can behave worse...
As par for the course I didn't RTFA. So I don't know if the title and summary have nothing to do with each other and follow the inflammatory trend of clickbait or not.
However I'm not sure what "New Evidence" they are referring to other than someone built a simulated model. A model demonstrating something isn't exactly evidence. Depending on the parameters, you can build a model to show just about anything you want to show. If you are trying to show ice tectonics by using a model, I'm pretty sure you can do it. Now if there was some new parameter that they used in said model to prove something that might be a different story.
I think all houses have roofs. I drew a picture of a house with a roof. Ipso Facto this is proof that all houses have roofs. Ugh. Go Science!
I can only imagine who will sit on the board of directors of this "new non-profit organization called "Internet Piracy Review Agency" (IPRA)"
I can also only imagine the amount of scope creep that will happen, as they start to expand into all sorts of areas.
I would totally not support this, not that it matters.
For bonus points he should attached a solar panel to the car to keep the batteries charged, put a camera in it and the ability to transmit signal.
As most people know, just about everything on the Tesla can be controlled remotely. Now I know the range to earth would be no good. However if they put it into orbit, and eventually years later, get another spacecraft there to relay commands.... They could potentially start the engine, turn on the radio (well play music anyway, reception might be a bit spotty on Mars), flash the lights, etc... Maybe with some careful use of the window washer fluid, alter the cars rotation or something. Anyway a secondary and even more hilarious PR stunt... Though I guess without air music wouldn't work, and without satellites the GPS wouldn't either. Anyway simply having it flash it's high-beams at the arriving spaceship would be kind of funny... For even extra credit, don't tell anyone you're going to do it and see the reaction!
One of the things that this story got me thinking about is the eventual end result.
So lets say we fast forward to the future, electric cars have replaced those that run on fossil fuels. Great.
However, as we all know, much of the cost we pay in fossil fuels is government tax, which they use to fund an awful lot of things.
How much tax is recovered by government, and how is that revenue going to be replaced once all the gas guzzlers are gone?
I love it!
"I hope it gets far enough away from the launch pad that it does not cause pad damage -- I would consider that a win,"
Just a guess, but I'd say he wasn't playing 140 games of golf prior to the tracking policy.
It sounds like this guy was close to retirement, upper brass decided to issue everyone PDA for the express purpose of tracking individual movements. He complained about it, likely due to the invasion of privacy. He was forced to use it anyway. So it seems he decided to show them how stupid he thought their idea was, and how easy it was to circumvent it using a chip bag, while at the same time giving them the finger by going and playing golf all day...
He eventually got caught, and he probably expected them to find out, and got canned, which isn't unexpected, and I doubt he really was surprised. I'm sure he is probably laughing about the fact that it actually worked so long, playing 140 games of golf takes a fair amount of time I would expect! In the end, after so long, likely someone who works with him ran into him on the golf course and was bitter, or just as likely he was bragging about it to other staff further thumbing his nose at management, with predictable results.
"the veto ensures a toothlessness that is necessary for UN to perform its function", never heard it put that way, but it makes sense at least in a historical context.
At any rate, I see Russia's response as a pretty reasonable one. You can't ban something that doesn't actually exist yet. Even harder is to define exactly what that thing actually is without it actually existing. Depending on how nebulous your wording of what constitutes "autonomous" that could mean any number of things. I know we're all thinking of some Matrix AI type thing, but the reality is no government is going to hand over control like that of any significant military asset like that. This could however impact technologies that say do target identification, and the like. Not all of it scary bad stuff either, when you think about all the friendly fire issues in the modern military past. The technologies could actually *save* lives.