Very few companies use "gig" workers for their core competencies. If an engineer on my team has to stay home with a sick kid, I can't bring in a temp for a few days to replace him. Skilled jobs don't work that way.
And, more important, how do I get there?
Learn a skill that is not an interchangeable commodity. If you want to be valued you need to offer something that is valuable.
Walmart recently ditched its Prime competitor, shipping pass, that offered free two day shipping for $49... half the cost of a Prime membership.
But Amazon Prime gives you a lot more than just free shipping. You also get free movies, ebooks, etc. Even if you just get Prime for the movies, it is cheaper than Netflix.
More likely it is lack of competition. I used to buy used books and DVDs on eBay, but now Amazon has a way better selection, a better search interface, and better seller feedback. Many big e-sellers, like Goodwill, aren't even on eBay anymore. Most brick-and-mortar used bookstores and music stores are gone. So Amazon can jack up the price with few repercussions.
Why exactly would you expect to see sexism or racism that is not directed at you?
Because complaints would be directed through me. I work in a tech company, and over the years, I have dealt with about a dozen complaints. The thing is, they were never about the engineers, programmers, or other nerds. They were always about the salesmen, the marketing dept, or the warehouse crew. I am sure some nerds are misogynistic jerks, but I don't think that is common, and I believe it is actually less prevalent than in most other professions. My experience is that most nerds are welcoming to female co-workers, and judge them by their ability, not their gender. Ms Fowler's description of her experience at Uber sounds terrible, but I don't think Uber is typical of tech companies or representative of "nerd culture". She also describes a lot of backstabbing and chaos at Uber that have nothing to do with sexism, so it sounds like a very dysfunctional company on many levels.
We're supposed to believe that because this is Uber, and because everything about Uber is evil, this is News For Nerds.
This is news for nerds. Uber is a tech company, and the people that work there are nerds. I don't like vague accusations that tech companies are "sexist" because, while they are, I don't believe they are any more sexist than non-tech companies. But in this case, the accusations are not vague. Ms Fowler has made very specific accusations against specific people, and has hard evidence to back up what she is saying. Uber's behavior in dismissing her complaints was appalling.
ECC memory doesn't do anything to help when the bits that get flipped are in the CPU. Or anywhere else that isn't a RAM chip.
Except that the RAM has hundreds or thousands of times as many bits as a CPU, and Flash may have millions of times as many, and dynamic ram has smaller feature size, and is more susceptible to SEUs. So correcting RAM and Flash helps because that is where 99.9% of the problem is.
Even within the CPU, most transistors are used to implement cache, and cache can also be scrubbed (although not with just software).
Probably b'cos there is nothing that manufacturers can do about cosmic rays
Except that is not true. Electronic devices can be made more resistant to cosmic rays and other radiation. The easiest way to do so is to use depleted boron instead of "normal" boron as a semiconductor dopant. Boron-10 has a very high neutron absorption cross section while Boron-11 has a very small cross section. Use boron that has been "depleted" of the B10 isotope, and you cut way down on your neutron induced SEUs.
Another obvious countermeasure is to use ECC memory, and memory scrubbing.
The problem is not that there is nothing that manufacturers can do, but that consumers aren't willing to pay the extra cost. Would you be willing to pay an extra $100 for your phone if it meant one fewer reboot every decade or so?
I pay a somewhat hefty fee to recycle (I think around $20-$40). That's the best I can do to ensure they actually will be recycled
Why does you paying them make them more honest? How much fuel do you burn driving there and back? Like most recycling, this seems to be more about "feeling good" rather than actually helping the environment.
Besides, even a warehouse full of dead monitors that will basically just sit forever is still a way better scenario than having them polluting a landfill.
Except for all the resources that went into building the warehouse. Do you know how much CO2 is generated to make concrete?
Do program languages in non-English speaking countries use English?
The keywords (if, else, for, while) are in English. The comments and variable names are often in the local language (Portuguese in this case), but most multi-national teams standardize on English.
It is not just a question of whether a programmer is more suited for remote working, but also if the management and the rest of the team is willing to make the effort to communicate and coordinate. In my experience, all these factors NEVER happen, and companies that try distributed development are some of the most dysfunctional organizations I have ever worked with. There are always people way out of the loop, and submitting work on projects that were cancelled weeks ago, and when it comes to office politics and backstabbing, the remote workers are at a severe disadvantage. I am not saying it is impossible, I am just saying I have never seen it work.
I have talked to dozens of SAP customers, and I always ask them "Are you happy that you decided to go with SAP?". So far, this is that number that have answered affirmatively: 0.
Also, people with military service are given preference for USPS jobs, so they get a lot of misfits that washed out of the service. Many of these people are bitter because they got screwed out of their military pension, and are now stuck in a dead-end job, sorting packages with minimal human interaction. Combine that with knowledge of weapons, and years of training that violence is the solution to most problems, and you can see why "going postal" is so frequent.
Maybe you could explain why "how the memory is mapped at a low level" is important when most computers treat memory as a numbered sequence of words and are shielded from how the memory subsystem is physically organized?
Maybe you were still pooping your diapers back in 1990, but some of us are old enough to remember dealing with segment registers and memory banks. You kids today got it easy.
If you tax robots, then there is LESS incentive to getting robots, and more work for humans to do.
This is the Lump of Labor Fallacy. There is not a fixed number of jobs in the economy, and automating a particular job out of existence does not mean fewer overall jobs. As automation reduces costs, people will spend their savings on other goods and services, creating jobs in other areas of the economy.
Such as Microsoft, the company founded by Bill Gates, which has cheated the state of Washington out of billions of dollars in taxes by claiming that all of it's revenue comes from a tiny office in Nevada.
No. Microsoft never did that, because Washington state does not have either a personal or corporate income tax. They do have sales taxes, but that is based on purchases not revenue.
How do you determine the tax on each individual robot?
It should be based on how many jobs are destroyed. For instance, if someone invented a "washing machine" that could wash clothes automatically instead of employing millions of laundresses to manually scrub those clothes on a washboard, then those machines should obviously be heavily taxed. The same for "dishwasher" machines that destroy the jobs of scullery maids. Or worst of all, if someone were to automate the job of "switchboard operator", by using some sort of computer to route phone calls, that would have a devastating effect on the economy.
Without a semblance of someone being in charge of the car, I think the future od driverless cars might have the unmistakable reek of shit and piss.
People ride "driverless" elevators everyday without shitting or pissing in them. Why would horizontal movement be so different from vertical movement?
Unlike an elevator, to get into a self-driving-taxi you will need to provide a CC#, or an account number linked to your identity. Your behavior in the vehicle will be recorded by one or more $5 cameras. If you soil the seats, your account will be debited, as you agreed when you clicked on the TOS.
They had the account for years. It has some personal or sensitive data in it.
Then delete the personal and sensitive data. That doesn't require closing the account, and closing the account doesn't necessarily mean affiliated data is deleted. So why should anyone care if the account is closed?
I wonder if checking by seeing if an email to it bounces would "reset" the timer. Because if so, spam will keep it open forever!
No. Receiving email does not reset the timer. But I am confused about why people care if the account is open. If they are no longer using the account, and it contains no personal information, then it is just a spam sink, wasting space on Yahoo's disk farm, but otherwise doing nothing and harming no one.
grown on mostly naturally arid land in Arizona and California watered from unsustainable water sources
The biggest use of water in California is irrigation of pasture for beef and dairy. If you think meat uses less resources than soybeans, you are delusional.
Slashdot Mirror
What world do you come from?
Very few companies use "gig" workers for their core competencies. If an engineer on my team has to stay home with a sick kid, I can't bring in a temp for a few days to replace him. Skilled jobs don't work that way.
And, more important, how do I get there?
Learn a skill that is not an interchangeable commodity. If you want to be valued you need to offer something that is valuable.
Walmart recently ditched its Prime competitor, shipping pass, that offered free two day shipping for $49... half the cost of a Prime membership.
But Amazon Prime gives you a lot more than just free shipping. You also get free movies, ebooks, etc. Even if you just get Prime for the movies, it is cheaper than Netflix.
Supply & demand might be the cause.
More likely it is lack of competition. I used to buy used books and DVDs on eBay, but now Amazon has a way better selection, a better search interface, and better seller feedback. Many big e-sellers, like Goodwill, aren't even on eBay anymore. Most brick-and-mortar used bookstores and music stores are gone. So Amazon can jack up the price with few repercussions.
Why exactly would you expect to see sexism or racism that is not directed at you?
Because complaints would be directed through me. I work in a tech company, and over the years, I have dealt with about a dozen complaints. The thing is, they were never about the engineers, programmers, or other nerds. They were always about the salesmen, the marketing dept, or the warehouse crew. I am sure some nerds are misogynistic jerks, but I don't think that is common, and I believe it is actually less prevalent than in most other professions. My experience is that most nerds are welcoming to female co-workers, and judge them by their ability, not their gender. Ms Fowler's description of her experience at Uber sounds terrible, but I don't think Uber is typical of tech companies or representative of "nerd culture". She also describes a lot of backstabbing and chaos at Uber that have nothing to do with sexism, so it sounds like a very dysfunctional company on many levels.
I thought Über was a taxi company, and their employees were mostly taxi drivers?
No. The drivers are not employees, they are contractors. TFA is not about drivers, it is about a W2 employee that worked as a reliability engineer.
We're supposed to believe that because this is Uber, and because everything about Uber is evil, this is News For Nerds.
This is news for nerds. Uber is a tech company, and the people that work there are nerds. I don't like vague accusations that tech companies are "sexist" because, while they are, I don't believe they are any more sexist than non-tech companies. But in this case, the accusations are not vague. Ms Fowler has made very specific accusations against specific people, and has hard evidence to back up what she is saying. Uber's behavior in dismissing her complaints was appalling.
ECC memory doesn't do anything to help when the bits that get flipped are in the CPU. Or anywhere else that isn't a RAM chip.
Except that the RAM has hundreds or thousands of times as many bits as a CPU, and Flash may have millions of times as many, and dynamic ram has smaller feature size, and is more susceptible to SEUs. So correcting RAM and Flash helps because that is where 99.9% of the problem is.
Even within the CPU, most transistors are used to implement cache, and cache can also be scrubbed (although not with just software).
Probably b'cos there is nothing that manufacturers can do about cosmic rays
Except that is not true. Electronic devices can be made more resistant to cosmic rays and other radiation. The easiest way to do so is to use depleted boron instead of "normal" boron as a semiconductor dopant. Boron-10 has a very high neutron absorption cross section while Boron-11 has a very small cross section. Use boron that has been "depleted" of the B10 isotope, and you cut way down on your neutron induced SEUs.
Another obvious countermeasure is to use ECC memory, and memory scrubbing.
The problem is not that there is nothing that manufacturers can do, but that consumers aren't willing to pay the extra cost. Would you be willing to pay an extra $100 for your phone if it meant one fewer reboot every decade or so?
I pay a somewhat hefty fee to recycle (I think around $20-$40). That's the best I can do to ensure they actually will be recycled
Why does you paying them make them more honest?
How much fuel do you burn driving there and back?
Like most recycling, this seems to be more about "feeling good" rather than actually helping the environment.
Besides, even a warehouse full of dead monitors that will basically just sit forever is still a way better scenario than having them polluting a landfill.
Except for all the resources that went into building the warehouse. Do you know how much CO2 is generated to make concrete?
Do program languages in non-English speaking countries use English?
The keywords (if, else, for, while) are in English. The comments and variable names are often in the local language (Portuguese in this case), but most multi-national teams standardize on English.
It is not just a question of whether a programmer is more suited for remote working, but also if the management and the rest of the team is willing to make the effort to communicate and coordinate. In my experience, all these factors NEVER happen, and companies that try distributed development are some of the most dysfunctional organizations I have ever worked with. There are always people way out of the loop, and submitting work on projects that were cancelled weeks ago, and when it comes to office politics and backstabbing, the remote workers are at a severe disadvantage. I am not saying it is impossible, I am just saying I have never seen it work.
what could possibly go wrong?
I have talked to dozens of SAP customers, and I always ask them "Are you happy that you decided to go with SAP?". So far, this is that number that have answered affirmatively: 0.
Also, people with military service are given preference for USPS jobs, so they get a lot of misfits that washed out of the service. Many of these people are bitter because they got screwed out of their military pension, and are now stuck in a dead-end job, sorting packages with minimal human interaction. Combine that with knowledge of weapons, and years of training that violence is the solution to most problems, and you can see why "going postal" is so frequent.
Maybe you could explain why "how the memory is mapped at a low level" is important when most computers treat memory as a numbered sequence of words and are shielded from how the memory subsystem is physically organized?
Maybe you were still pooping your diapers back in 1990, but some of us are old enough to remember dealing with segment registers and memory banks. You kids today got it easy.
If you tax robots, then there is LESS incentive to getting robots, and more work for humans to do.
This is the Lump of Labor Fallacy. There is not a fixed number of jobs in the economy, and automating a particular job out of existence does not mean fewer overall jobs. As automation reduces costs, people will spend their savings on other goods and services, creating jobs in other areas of the economy.
Such as Microsoft, the company founded by Bill Gates, which has cheated the state of Washington out of billions of dollars in taxes by claiming that all of it's revenue comes from a tiny office in Nevada.
No. Microsoft never did that, because Washington state does not have either a personal or corporate income tax. They do have sales taxes, but that is based on purchases not revenue.
How do you determine the tax on each individual robot?
It should be based on how many jobs are destroyed. For instance, if someone invented a "washing machine" that could wash clothes automatically instead of employing millions of laundresses to manually scrub those clothes on a washboard, then those machines should obviously be heavily taxed. The same for "dishwasher" machines that destroy the jobs of scullery maids. Or worst of all, if someone were to automate the job of "switchboard operator", by using some sort of computer to route phone calls, that would have a devastating effect on the economy.
Without a semblance of someone being in charge of the car, I think the future od driverless cars might have the unmistakable reek of shit and piss.
People ride "driverless" elevators everyday without shitting or pissing in them. Why would horizontal movement be so different from vertical movement?
Unlike an elevator, to get into a self-driving-taxi you will need to provide a CC#, or an account number linked to your identity. Your behavior in the vehicle will be recorded by one or more $5 cameras. If you soil the seats, your account will be debited, as you agreed when you clicked on the TOS.
If one were to create/utilize AI scripts to provide a value for cash, is that not akin to owning one or more slaves for the same purpose?
If one were to eat tofu for dinner, is that not akin to consuming human flesh for the same purpose?
I haven't thought this through deeply
Indeed.
You don't buy it, duh.
What if you didn't buy it, but you are just paying $5 for a ride to work?
Umm...is this the Pascal as in the programming language?
Does anyone still program in Pascal? The last time I saw it on a resume was more than 20 years ago.
Anyway, this supercomputer has nothing to do with the Pascal programming language. It is built using NVidia Pascal GPUs.
if robotic replacement of human workers becomes widespread, the income tax formerly paid by the human should be levied against the robotic worker
The Socialist Party candidate for the President of France has acutally proposed to do this. Fortunately for the French, he is way behind in the polls and has a near zero chance of winning.
They had the account for years. It has some personal or sensitive data in it.
Then delete the personal and sensitive data. That doesn't require closing the account, and closing the account doesn't necessarily mean affiliated data is deleted. So why should anyone care if the account is closed?
I wonder if checking by seeing if an email to it bounces would "reset" the timer. Because if so, spam will keep it open forever!
No. Receiving email does not reset the timer. But I am confused about why people care if the account is open. If they are no longer using the account, and it contains no personal information, then it is just a spam sink, wasting space on Yahoo's disk farm, but otherwise doing nothing and harming no one.
grown on mostly naturally arid land in Arizona and California watered from unsustainable water sources
The biggest use of water in California is irrigation of pasture for beef and dairy. If you think meat uses less resources than soybeans, you are delusional.