I have dealt with bedbug infestations. They generally don't bite people that are not sleeping. The "bedbug bites" shown in the video look nothing like actual bedbug bites that I have seen. To see what real bites look like, go to images.google.com and type "bedbug bites".
Insecticides and fumigation don't work well because they only kill the bugs, and not the eggs, so a week later they will be back. The best/fastest way to get rid of bedbugs is with heat. Get the heat up to 140F (60C) for eight hours. One way to do this is to pack loose bedding and cushions in a car parked in the sun with the windows closed. Then buy or rent some powerful space heaters and heat up all the rooms. Luckily, they will be doing this in the summer.
To prevent reinfestation, they need to ban people from bringing cushions, blankets, stuffed animals, etc. from home. They also need to check their contractor cleaning crew. It is best that they use your vacuum cleaner rather than their own that they move from place to place.
most people I know from the old neighborhood are doing pretty well. But that was also a different era with a lot more upward mobility.
Social mobility has declined in America, but there are huge variations. Social mobility is the worst in rural areas, especially in the Southeast and on Native American reservations. People born poor in those areas tend to stay poor. Mobility is much better in urban, northern, and coastal areas.
Of the friends and family I grew up with in Appalachia, the only people doing well are those that moved away.
I'm just curious what your personal experience is with poor people.
I grew up in Appalachia. My grandfather was a coal miner and died of black lung disease. I got out when I enlisted in the Marines on my 18th birthday, which led to a chain of life events, and I currently work as an engineer in Silicon Valley. But I still have a lot of relatives living in trailer parks. They all have big screen TVs, but have saved nothing for their kids' education or even their own retirement. There are people that are poor because of bad health, or bad luck, but there are also many that are poor because of astoundingly bad life decisions.
I knew plenty of poor people (mostly relatives) who, given a spare $120, would definitely prioritize Gwyneth's "Bio-frequency" patch over funding their child's ESA.
What? How is it not harmful? It was advertised as fast, so I bought it, and got less than what I paid for. That is harmful.
buying a medical product that fails to alert you to the development of a serious condition harmless?
That has NOTHING to do with the false claim. They advertise the product as being the same as what NASA uses in spacesuits. But that DOESN"T MATTER. It is a crap product that does nothing, and it doesn't do any less because of the false claim. So the lie is harmless.
And why should a company be given a free pass to lie just because it's deemed to be harmless
If you don't like it, then don't buy it. But do not waste my tax dollars on prosecuting harmless lies. We have enough stupid crap clogging up our courts.
Ever consider the possibility that the cybercrime division actually could help
No. I was actually involved in a criminal case involving the FBI's cybercrime unit, and I would not even consider the possibility that they could figure out how to turn a computer on. I never met a group of more clueless people. The guy leading the investigation had been a history major in college, and had made no effort whatsoever to learn anything about technology. His subordinates were even dumber.
Disclaimer: I was not the target of the investigation. The FBI contacted me because I had previously won a civil suit against the perp, and knew a lot about his business practices.
disproves the belief that being rich means you must be smart.
Why do you think that "the rich" are buying this product? My experience is that it is the poor that are more likely to squander their money on stupid crap. That is a big part of why they are poor.
5. Go to your doctor regularly and do what he/she says
There is very little evidence for a causative relationship between seeing a doctor regularly, and good health. In "pay per service" jurisdictions, such as the United States, there is some evidence that routine doctor visits are actually harmful, since they rarely find real problems but have financial incentives to order unnecessary tests and treatments that do more harm than good.
This is a myth. There is no actual evidence of health benefits from drinking liquids in excess of your normal desire. There are exceptions for people prone to develop kidney stones, and a few other rare health disorders. But for most people, there is no benefit. If you are thirsty, drink water. Otherwise, don't worry about it.
For example Apple once claimed to sell the most powerful desktop computer, and was promptly fined
That is a poor example. That would be illegal in America as well, since it is not only false, but caused tangible harm to customers. What Gwyneth did would likely not be legally actionable in America because no one was actually harmed by the false statements.
America's laws make more sense. Harmful lies in ads should be illegal, and warrant government action. Harmless lies should be left to the market to sort out.
These are reasonable requests and fit perfectly within the Open Source paradigm. So what's the issue?
The Open Source paradigm is that with many eyes all bugs are shallow. But in this case, there are not many eyes, only a few Russian eyes, and those eyes are at least potentially hostile.
If they want to give the Russians access, it would be wise to also give more source access to friendly eyes, such as Western security experts, along with some bug bounties to incentivise them.
these talented individuals would stay in their own country and build businesses there
It is orders of magnitude harder to "start a business" in a place like, say, India. There is a good reason that Indian-Americans have a median income of over $100,000 while Indian-Indians have a median income of less than $1,600. America is far more friendly to entrepreneurs, far less corrupt, has far more productive potential employees, and has far better infrastructure.
If you had a bushel of seed corn, would you cast it on fertile soil, or cast it into the desert? Smart productive people are humanity's seed corn. In America, they will create jobs, new products, and new knowledge. Back home, their capabilities will be squandered.
He assumes that because, like many economic illiterates, he believes the job market is zero-sum. If there are N jobs, and an immigrant takes one of them, then there are N-1 jobs left for real Americans. Of course this is total nonsense. Real economies don't work that way.
an immigrant decides to go to Canada instead and start a company there
Many other countries are far more enlightened about immigration. Immigration, especially of educated people, tends to create net jobs, and create better jobs. Instead of keeping them out, we should be trying to promote more immigration by marketing America as a destination for entrepreneurs, researchers, investors, etc.
The whole point is to produce a lot of reasonable, "everything is okay" posts that seem to basically represent people living their daily lives.
But 448M posts/year isn't "a lot", it is a negligible number. China has about 600M internet users, and they use social media a lot more than Americans do. So 448M posts is less than one per person per year. That is practically unnoticable.
Yes and no. Prices have gone down on manufactured goods where automation has improved productivity. TVs are both cheaper and better. For services, prices have not gone down because something like a haircut is difficult to automate.
Poor people buy mostly "things", so they can afford more. Rich people buy mostly services, so inflation affects them more.
they don't do so because there's no demand for the goods and service these jobs would be providing.
In 2016, America's trade deficit was $502 Billion. That means that we "demanded" and consumed half a trillion dollars worth of goods and services in excess of what we produced. Saying that America has insufficient demand is nonsense.
Look, I agree that 2x4 is a stupid name for a standard lumber dimension that is NOT 2" x 4". But nevertheless, THAT IS THE STANDARD. Home Depot didn't create the standard, and it is not their fault that it is stupid. But when 95% of people buy a 2x4, they understand that 2x4 is the tradename and not the precise dimensions. They want a standard 2x4, and that is exactly what Home Depot gives them.
If you want precise dimensions, then take along a ruler.
..and if the day comes when only a small percentage of the population is fit to task for the remaining jobs?
As jobs are automated, their cost of production drops, meaning money is freed up to spend or invest elsewhere in the economy. This means that not only is there no net loss of jobs, the additional production means that the same income can buy more goods and services. I know that this is hard for some people to believe, but higher productivity and more affordable prices do NOT cause poverty.
If automation caused poverty, then America, Europe, and Japan would be starving, while countries that avoided the "folly of efficiency" such as Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Afghanistan would be rich and prosperous.
Who are these companies going to sell to?
Just for the sake of argument, let's say that "this time is different", and greater productivity really does lead to mass poverty. Then when the rich refuse to hire the poor, the poor could just MAKE STUFF FOR EACH OTHER. Since grocery store pies will only be available to the rich, I can grow apples in my backyard, and barter with my neighbor who can make them into pies in her kitchen. Perhaps we could even use little metal or paper tokens as a medium of exchange to facilitate these transactions.
We could just build a parallel economy. But the difference is that the rich will use automation, while we will do everything manually. But the joke will be one them, because in this alternative universe, automation CAUSES POVERTY, so soon we will be rich while their efficient production will lead them to the poorhouse! HA HA HA!!!
Doesn't everyone realize this is a side effect of fixed minimum wage?
Many fast food restaurants need to pay above minimum wage to attract enough workers. Even where they pay the minimum, it is unlikely they could get away with paying much less. A higher minimum wage might accelerate automation, but it will happen regardless.
Eventually Only shareholders will have "more money" to spend
In a competitive market (and fast food is competitive) most of the cost savings will go to the customer, not the shareholders. Historically, this is what has almost always happened.
Henry Ford got rich by automating automobile manufacturing, but far more money was saved by his customers when the cost of a car went from over $10,000 for hand-built cars to $850 for the first Model-T in 1908, and to only $300 by 1925.
Increased efficiency leading to greater demand is known as Jevon's Paradox. It is one more reason why zero-sum reasoning about economic issues is almost always wrong.
ATMs coupled with internet banking have substantially reduced the need for bank tellers.
Wrong. The number of human tellers has gone up. Prior to ATMs, human tellers mainly took deposits and dispensed cash. After ATMs and Internet banking, tellers do higher level tasks like setting up accounts, helping with mortgage applications, etc. This makes each teller more profitable, and thus banks have employed more of them.
When more efficient use of a resource leads to greater demand, it is an example of Jevon's Paradox.
Slashdot Mirror
I have dealt with bedbug infestations. They generally don't bite people that are not sleeping. The "bedbug bites" shown in the video look nothing like actual bedbug bites that I have seen. To see what real bites look like, go to images.google.com and type "bedbug bites".
Insecticides and fumigation don't work well because they only kill the bugs, and not the eggs, so a week later they will be back. The best/fastest way to get rid of bedbugs is with heat. Get the heat up to 140F (60C) for eight hours. One way to do this is to pack loose bedding and cushions in a car parked in the sun with the windows closed. Then buy or rent some powerful space heaters and heat up all the rooms. Luckily, they will be doing this in the summer.
To prevent reinfestation, they need to ban people from bringing cushions, blankets, stuffed animals, etc. from home. They also need to check their contractor cleaning crew. It is best that they use your vacuum cleaner rather than their own that they move from place to place.
most people I know from the old neighborhood are doing pretty well. But that was also a different era with a lot more upward mobility.
Social mobility has declined in America, but there are huge variations. Social mobility is the worst in rural areas, especially in the Southeast and on Native American reservations. People born poor in those areas tend to stay poor. Mobility is much better in urban, northern, and coastal areas.
Of the friends and family I grew up with in Appalachia, the only people doing well are those that moved away.
But what about her claim of raw milk..
What about it? That has nothing to do with her NASA claim, and she isn't selling raw milk, so she can say anything she wants about it.
I'm just curious what your personal experience is with poor people.
I grew up in Appalachia. My grandfather was a coal miner and died of black lung disease. I got out when I enlisted in the Marines on my 18th birthday, which led to a chain of life events, and I currently work as an engineer in Silicon Valley. But I still have a lot of relatives living in trailer parks. They all have big screen TVs, but have saved nothing for their kids' education or even their own retirement. There are people that are poor because of bad health, or bad luck, but there are also many that are poor because of astoundingly bad life decisions.
I knew plenty of poor people (mostly relatives) who, given a spare $120, would definitely prioritize Gwyneth's "Bio-frequency" patch over funding their child's ESA.
How is buying a slightly slower computer harmful
What? How is it not harmful? It was advertised as fast, so I bought it, and got less than what I paid for. That is harmful.
buying a medical product that fails to alert you to the development of a serious condition harmless?
That has NOTHING to do with the false claim. They advertise the product as being the same as what NASA uses in spacesuits. But that DOESN"T MATTER. It is a crap product that does nothing, and it doesn't do any less because of the false claim. So the lie is harmless.
And why should a company be given a free pass to lie just because it's deemed to be harmless
If you don't like it, then don't buy it. But do not waste my tax dollars on prosecuting harmless lies. We have enough stupid crap clogging up our courts.
Ever consider the possibility that the cybercrime division actually could help
No. I was actually involved in a criminal case involving the FBI's cybercrime unit, and I would not even consider the possibility that they could figure out how to turn a computer on. I never met a group of more clueless people. The guy leading the investigation had been a history major in college, and had made no effort whatsoever to learn anything about technology. His subordinates were even dumber.
Disclaimer: I was not the target of the investigation. The FBI contacted me because I had previously won a civil suit against the perp, and knew a lot about his business practices.
Or they know that government agencies will provide zero help in solving their problem.
Do you honestly think that US agencies don't have access to the source code of US products?
Do you honestly think that these agencies are "friendly eyes"?
Who says they haven't? My guess is the NSA has looked at the code...
The NSA doesn't report bugs and vulnerabilities back to the tech company.
If I had a choice of disclosing my source code to either the Russians or the NSA, I would pick the Russians.
disproves the belief that being rich means you must be smart.
Why do you think that "the rich" are buying this product? My experience is that it is the poor that are more likely to squander their money on stupid crap. That is a big part of why they are poor.
5. Go to your doctor regularly and do what he/she says
There is very little evidence for a causative relationship between seeing a doctor regularly, and good health. In "pay per service" jurisdictions, such as the United States, there is some evidence that routine doctor visits are actually harmful, since they rarely find real problems but have financial incentives to order unnecessary tests and treatments that do more harm than good.
Don't forget:
7. Keep well hydrated
This is a myth. There is no actual evidence of health benefits from drinking liquids in excess of your normal desire. There are exceptions for people prone to develop kidney stones, and a few other rare health disorders. But for most people, there is no benefit. If you are thirsty, drink water. Otherwise, don't worry about it.
For example Apple once claimed to sell the most powerful desktop computer, and was promptly fined
That is a poor example. That would be illegal in America as well, since it is not only false, but caused tangible harm to customers. What Gwyneth did would likely not be legally actionable in America because no one was actually harmed by the false statements.
America's laws make more sense. Harmful lies in ads should be illegal, and warrant government action. Harmless lies should be left to the market to sort out.
These are reasonable requests and fit perfectly within the Open Source paradigm. So what's the issue?
The Open Source paradigm is that with many eyes all bugs are shallow. But in this case, there are not many eyes, only a few Russian eyes, and those eyes are at least potentially hostile.
If they want to give the Russians access, it would be wise to also give more source access to friendly eyes, such as Western security experts, along with some bug bounties to incentivise them.
these talented individuals would stay in their own country and build businesses there
It is orders of magnitude harder to "start a business" in a place like, say, India. There is a good reason that Indian-Americans have a median income of over $100,000 while Indian-Indians have a median income of less than $1,600. America is far more friendly to entrepreneurs, far less corrupt, has far more productive potential employees, and has far better infrastructure.
If you had a bushel of seed corn, would you cast it on fertile soil, or cast it into the desert? Smart productive people are humanity's seed corn. In America, they will create jobs, new products, and new knowledge. Back home, their capabilities will be squandered.
Citations:
American median household income by ethnicity. Indian Americans are #1.
Ease of doing business. America is #8. India is #130.
Why do you assume that?
He assumes that because, like many economic illiterates, he believes the job market is zero-sum. If there are N jobs, and an immigrant takes one of them, then there are N-1 jobs left for real Americans. Of course this is total nonsense. Real economies don't work that way.
an immigrant decides to go to Canada instead and start a company there
Many other countries are far more enlightened about immigration. Immigration, especially of educated people, tends to create net jobs, and create better jobs. Instead of keeping them out, we should be trying to promote more immigration by marketing America as a destination for entrepreneurs, researchers, investors, etc.
The whole point is to produce a lot of reasonable, "everything is okay" posts that seem to basically represent people living their daily lives.
But 448M posts/year isn't "a lot", it is a negligible number. China has about 600M internet users, and they use social media a lot more than Americans do. So 448M posts is less than one per person per year. That is practically unnoticable.
We're not getting more affordable prices, though.
Yes and no. Prices have gone down on manufactured goods where automation has improved productivity. TVs are both cheaper and better. For services, prices have not gone down because something like a haircut is difficult to automate.
Poor people buy mostly "things", so they can afford more.
Rich people buy mostly services, so inflation affects them more.
they don't do so because there's no demand for the goods and service these jobs would be providing.
In 2016, America's trade deficit was $502 Billion. That means that we "demanded" and consumed half a trillion dollars worth of goods and services in excess of what we produced. Saying that America has insufficient demand is nonsense.
Look, I agree that 2x4 is a stupid name for a standard lumber dimension that is NOT 2" x 4". But nevertheless, THAT IS THE STANDARD. Home Depot didn't create the standard, and it is not their fault that it is stupid. But when 95% of people buy a 2x4, they understand that 2x4 is the tradename and not the precise dimensions. They want a standard 2x4, and that is exactly what Home Depot gives them.
If you want precise dimensions, then take along a ruler.
..and if the day comes when only a small percentage of the population is fit to task for the remaining jobs?
As jobs are automated, their cost of production drops, meaning money is freed up to spend or invest elsewhere in the economy. This means that not only is there no net loss of jobs, the additional production means that the same income can buy more goods and services. I know that this is hard for some people to believe, but higher productivity and more affordable prices do NOT cause poverty.
If automation caused poverty, then America, Europe, and Japan would be starving, while countries that avoided the "folly of efficiency" such as Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Afghanistan would be rich and prosperous.
Who are these companies going to sell to?
Just for the sake of argument, let's say that "this time is different", and greater productivity really does lead to mass poverty. Then when the rich refuse to hire the poor, the poor could just MAKE STUFF FOR EACH OTHER. Since grocery store pies will only be available to the rich, I can grow apples in my backyard, and barter with my neighbor who can make them into pies in her kitchen. Perhaps we could even use little metal or paper tokens as a medium of exchange to facilitate these transactions.
We could just build a parallel economy. But the difference is that the rich will use automation, while we will do everything manually. But the joke will be one them, because in this alternative universe, automation CAUSES POVERTY, so soon we will be rich while their efficient production will lead them to the poorhouse! HA HA HA!!!
Doesn't everyone realize this is a side effect of fixed minimum wage?
Many fast food restaurants need to pay above minimum wage to attract enough workers. Even where they pay the minimum, it is unlikely they could get away with paying much less. A higher minimum wage might accelerate automation, but it will happen regardless.
Eventually Only shareholders will have "more money" to spend
In a competitive market (and fast food is competitive) most of the cost savings will go to the customer, not the shareholders. Historically, this is what has almost always happened.
Henry Ford got rich by automating automobile manufacturing, but far more money was saved by his customers when the cost of a car went from over $10,000 for hand-built cars to $850 for the first Model-T in 1908, and to only $300 by 1925.
look up the performance of the test stores and see that they've actually hired MORE people due to the increased workload.
This is analogous to the way that ATMs increased jobs for human tellers.
Increased efficiency leading to greater demand is known as Jevon's Paradox. It is one more reason why zero-sum reasoning about economic issues is almost always wrong.
ATMs coupled with internet banking have substantially reduced the need for bank tellers.
Wrong. The number of human tellers has gone up. Prior to ATMs, human tellers mainly took deposits and dispensed cash. After ATMs and Internet banking, tellers do higher level tasks like setting up accounts, helping with mortgage applications, etc. This makes each teller more profitable, and thus banks have employed more of them.
When more efficient use of a resource leads to greater demand, it is an example of Jevon's Paradox.