All income is going to the top, leaving none for them.
They will get cheap, fast, and reliable transportation. This will help the people at the bottom of the economic ladder the most: The people now wasting hours everyday on slow and inefficient public transportation. SDCs will bring the convenience of cars to people that can't afford to own one.
How is a peaceful citizen owning a fully-automatic weapon and thousands of rounds harming you or infringing on your rights in a significant way?
They aren't. What's your point? I have no objection to my neighbor owning an M16, or even an M60. Especially if he invites me to go with him to the gun range.
Hopefully those kids will grow tired of it before they grow into adults.
They will grow tired of it in about an hour. People rapidly adjust to new things. Some people rag on self-driving cars, but nobody is complaining about self-driving elevators and phones that no longer need human switchboard operators. Certainly no one complains about the automatic looms that riled up the original Luddites.
They only complain about the "new" thing, and stop when it is no longer new.
Guaranteed that if those lawyers' and politicians' own jobs were threatened by technology, there would be a whole lot more barriers to this automation craze.
Automation of legal research and legal document processing has been common for decades. Number of laws restricting progress in this area: 0.
There are much better ways of protesting than throwing rocks or pointing guns at the vehicle itself.
They are not protesting. They are just venting their anger. It is only directed an Waymo because they aren't sure who else to blame.
Protesting only makes sense when you can articulate an alternative. That isn't happening here.
Automation is not going to go away no matter how they attack it.
Then what is the point in protesting? It is going to happen no matter what. That is why they are angry.
These are dumb and crazy people, frustrated with their lives, believing (correctly) that nobody gives a crap about them. Even voting for Trump didn't fix their problems. So now they are lashing out at a symbol of the world passing them by.
Why don’t communities vote on whether Waymo is allowed to drive in their town/neighborhood/street?
Because we live in a free country, and the public roads should be accessible to anyone obeying the laws. A vote should not change that, anymore than a vote should be able to censor a newspaper or shut down a church.
If you want to put restrictions on what others can do, the burden is on you to show they are harming you or infringing on your rights in a significant way.
How is a Waymo car harming you in a way that a human driven car is not?
TFA is stupid. There are no special restrictions on "media companies". Laws and regulations on fraudulent and misleading ads apply to ANYONE doing advertising, whether it is a Madison Avenue advertising firm, Facebook, or an individual posting a Craigslist ad.
Calling Facebook a "media company" instead of a "technology company" makes no difference whatsoever.
The problem was, the average business person or home computer person had no knowledge to discriminate good computers or OSes or applications from bad
I don't think this is true. I remember seeing the first Amiga in the mid-80s, and it was obvious that it was superior to the x86-PC. But I didn't buy one, and neither did most other people because it didn't run the software we needed... and software companies didn't port to it because the market was too small.
It was a classic chicken&egg problem. Once a "good enough" solution is entrenched, it is very hard to displace even if the replacement is superior in every way.
Another example is 5.25" vs 3.5" floppies. 3.5" was superior in every way: smaller, higher capacity, faster, more reliable, etc. Yet 3.5" took more than 10 years to displace 5.25" as the most common format.
In tech, being first is more important than being best.
Many parents limit their kids' access to phones and computers. Some parents don't allow their kids access at all.
The problem is that these people are likely not "typical". They are likely higher income, higher IQ, and more involved in their kids education in other ways, such as encouraging reading books.
I always figured that most people use Incognito mode when they visit porn sites
Incognito mode may keep spouses/parents from seeing what sites you visited, but it does not keep those sites from tracking you. They can identify you from your IP address, and even from the pattern of your mouse movements.
. . . so what are your thoughts on how to fix the patent system . . . ?
1. Eliminate software patents entirely. Most countries don't have them.
2. There should be a fee to get a patent, but also to keep one. The annual fee should double each year. This will make it easy for "the little guy" to get a patent, but make it increasingly expensive to just sit on an unused patent.
3. Outlaw trolls. Any NPE should not be allowed to sue for the infringement of assigned patents. Only the original inventor or someone actively using the patent should have the right to sue.
4. Have a national public patent pool. Anyone who receives a patent can assign it to the pool. Then they can use any patent in the pool royalty free.
I would also be okay with just eliminating patents entirely.
One thing we need to remember about patents is that the individual inventor who slaves away in his garage for years, and then gets rich licensing his patent to big companies... is a myth. That almost never happens. Companies will not even talk to an individual inventor. Most of their inventions are either crap, something close to what is already being done, or something the company may come up with on their own. But if they talk to a garage inventor, and especially if they sign an NDA, they are opening themselves up to a bogus lawsuit for "stealing" the idea, with punitive penalties for "intentional infringement".
So the only safe policy is to just refuse to talk to individual inventors, or anyone actively marketing a patent.
The patent system is run by the government. You should blame them for running a dysfunctional and corrupt racket, rather than blaming the companies that exploit it, which is nearly all of them.
The solution is to fix the patent system, not to shame individual companies into being less greedy.
These workers had walked off the job, hadn't come to work in a week, and had been told that their actions would push the company into bankruptcy. But you are right, somehow the company wasn't compassionate enough to give them unearned money that didn't exist.
You are naive. No company cares about you, they only care about money. If you provide ANYTHING to a company, you should demand payment for it.
I have over 30 years of experience in tech, mostly in Silicon Valley, but also a few years working for defense contractors in northern Virginia, and several years in East Asia (China and Japan). I am not naive.
During that time I have formed many deep friendships with managers, and with people I managed. The people at the companies I worked for certainly seemed to care about me, about my family, and about my professional development. Nearly everyone I have worked with has been decent and constructive.
I have also met a few cynical shitheads who contribute nothing, and often get themselves into toxic situations that confirm their world view. You sound like one of these.
Telling other people you plan to ${ fire | lay off | downsize } them is just basic human decency.
... and nearly all companies do that. When companies do immediate layoffs with no severance it is usually because the are bankrupt and going out of business, and the "evil" managers are losing their jobs as well.
Oh, but businesses have no basic human decency.
Most of them do... because it is good business.
Can you name a single company that, in the last decade, did a mass layoff with immediate effect and no severance?
Then these companies want to do an exit interview to figure out why you're leaving and make you feel guilty
I have never heard of an exit interview trying to make anyone feel guilty. If they are going to try to convince you to stay, that would happen before the exit interview.
I have quit a few jobs. Each time I gave them a several page document that explained what I saw as the problems in their company and what I thought they should do to fix things. In at least one instance, many of my suggestions were implemented, and several of my ex-coworkers thanked me for writing the document, which management had circulated around the company.
Try to be part of the solution, instead of just a whiner.
It is not wishful thinking to believe that they are wrong yet again.
Neither solar nor wind require specific breakthroughs. Any number of scientific advances would be enough. We could find replacements for the "rare" materials. We could find ways to use them more efficiently. We could find new deposits on the 99.9% of the earth's surface that we haven't checked yet. We could find ways to process existing deposits more efficiently. We could find a way to extract them from seawater. We could design bacteria that concentrate the elements. Any one of these breakthroughs would be enough. Betting on any one of them would be foolish. But the past has shown that betting on NO breakthroughs is even more foolish.
California has some 'rare earth' deposits worth considering.
The Mountain Pass Mine near the Nevada border on I-15 is the biggest (only?) rare earth mine in America. I believe it is currently operating, but not at full capacity.
Ironically, the mine is partly owned and run by a Chinese mining consortium.
So, the timeframe to solve materials problems is 30 years? Seems like they'd all be solved by now.
Go back 30 years, and compare that to where we are today. There have been enormous advances in materials science. We have better alloys, better polymers, better ceramics, and WAY better batteries and solar panels. 30 years ago, nanotubes had yet to be discovered, high-temperature superconductors were the new thing, and no one was doing additive manufacturing.
There is no reason to believe that progress is going to suddenly stop.
Slashdot Mirror
All income is going to the top, leaving none for them.
They will get cheap, fast, and reliable transportation. This will help the people at the bottom of the economic ladder the most: The people now wasting hours everyday on slow and inefficient public transportation. SDCs will bring the convenience of cars to people that can't afford to own one.
How is a peaceful citizen owning a fully-automatic weapon and thousands of rounds harming you or infringing on your rights in a significant way?
They aren't. What's your point? I have no objection to my neighbor owning an M16, or even an M60. Especially if he invites me to go with him to the gun range.
But you can't smoke pot.
We can in California. It is legal here.
They're "frustrated" that they're not going to survive without a job and without a social safety net. They're being killed.
Unemployment rate in Phoenix: 3.5%, a 40 year low.
Hopefully those kids will grow tired of it before they grow into adults.
They will grow tired of it in about an hour. People rapidly adjust to new things. Some people rag on self-driving cars, but nobody is complaining about self-driving elevators and phones that no longer need human switchboard operators. Certainly no one complains about the automatic looms that riled up the original Luddites.
They only complain about the "new" thing, and stop when it is no longer new.
Guaranteed that if those lawyers' and politicians' own jobs were threatened by technology, there would be a whole lot more barriers to this automation craze.
Automation of legal research and legal document processing has been common for decades. Number of laws restricting progress in this area: 0.
There are much better ways of protesting than throwing rocks or pointing guns at the vehicle itself.
They are not protesting. They are just venting their anger. It is only directed an Waymo because they aren't sure who else to blame.
Protesting only makes sense when you can articulate an alternative. That isn't happening here.
Automation is not going to go away no matter how they attack it.
Then what is the point in protesting? It is going to happen no matter what. That is why they are angry.
These are dumb and crazy people, frustrated with their lives, believing (correctly) that nobody gives a crap about them. Even voting for Trump didn't fix their problems. So now they are lashing out at a symbol of the world passing them by.
Why don’t communities vote on whether Waymo is allowed to drive in their town/neighborhood/street?
Because we live in a free country, and the public roads should be accessible to anyone obeying the laws. A vote should not change that, anymore than a vote should be able to censor a newspaper or shut down a church.
If you want to put restrictions on what others can do, the burden is on you to show they are harming you or infringing on your rights in a significant way.
How is a Waymo car harming you in a way that a human driven car is not?
TFA is stupid. There are no special restrictions on "media companies". Laws and regulations on fraudulent and misleading ads apply to ANYONE doing advertising, whether it is a Madison Avenue advertising firm, Facebook, or an individual posting a Craigslist ad.
Calling Facebook a "media company" instead of a "technology company" makes no difference whatsoever.
Superior at what? At flashy scrolling graphics demos?
Yes. Also the sound system was amazing. Before the Amiga, it had never occured to me that a computer could play music.
Did you ever try to add a hard disk to an Amiga?
No.
The reason people bought IBM PCs was because they ran Lotus 123.
Exactly. People didn't buy it because important software was not ported to it. The software was not ported to it because people weren't buying it.
The problem was, the average business person or home computer person had no knowledge to discriminate good computers or OSes or applications from bad
I don't think this is true. I remember seeing the first Amiga in the mid-80s, and it was obvious that it was superior to the x86-PC. But I didn't buy one, and neither did most other people because it didn't run the software we needed ... and software companies didn't port to it because the market was too small.
It was a classic chicken&egg problem. Once a "good enough" solution is entrenched, it is very hard to displace even if the replacement is superior in every way.
Another example is 5.25" vs 3.5" floppies. 3.5" was superior in every way: smaller, higher capacity, faster, more reliable, etc. Yet 3.5" took more than 10 years to displace 5.25" as the most common format.
In tech, being first is more important than being best.
Many parents limit their kids' access to phones and computers. Some parents don't allow their kids access at all.
The problem is that these people are likely not "typical". They are likely higher income, higher IQ, and more involved in their kids education in other ways, such as encouraging reading books.
This could just be a case of C != C.
It would be news because Tesla has openly stated that their OS is Ubuntu Linux. So if it is actually Windows, then they lied.
Fewer competitors in the market is bad.
Not in this case. There are two big companies: AT&T and Verizon, and two midgets: T-Mobile and Sprint.
Without the merger, Sprint will likely fold soon, and T-Moble will continue to limp on as a weak competitor to the AT&T - Verizon quasi-duopoly.
With the merger, the combined company will be a stronger competitor, and we can have a triopoly instead. This is a good thing, and should be approved.
I always figured that most people use Incognito mode when they visit porn sites
Incognito mode may keep spouses/parents from seeing what sites you visited, but it does not keep those sites from tracking you. They can identify you from your IP address, and even from the pattern of your mouse movements.
. . . so what are your thoughts on how to fix the patent system . . . ?
1. Eliminate software patents entirely. Most countries don't have them.
2. There should be a fee to get a patent, but also to keep one. The annual fee should double each year. This will make it easy for "the little guy" to get a patent, but make it increasingly expensive to just sit on an unused patent.
3. Outlaw trolls. Any NPE should not be allowed to sue for the infringement of assigned patents. Only the original inventor or someone actively using the patent should have the right to sue.
4. Have a national public patent pool. Anyone who receives a patent can assign it to the pool. Then they can use any patent in the pool royalty free.
I would also be okay with just eliminating patents entirely.
One thing we need to remember about patents is that the individual inventor who slaves away in his garage for years, and then gets rich licensing his patent to big companies ... is a myth. That almost never happens. Companies will not even talk to an individual inventor. Most of their inventions are either crap, something close to what is already being done, or something the company may come up with on their own. But if they talk to a garage inventor, and especially if they sign an NDA, they are opening themselves up to a bogus lawsuit for "stealing" the idea, with punitive penalties for "intentional infringement".
So the only safe policy is to just refuse to talk to individual inventors, or anyone actively marketing a patent.
Qualcomm should be ashamed.
The patent system is run by the government. You should blame them for running a dysfunctional and corrupt racket, rather than blaming the companies that exploit it, which is nearly all of them.
The solution is to fix the patent system, not to shame individual companies into being less greedy.
https://www.stltoday.com/busin...
These workers had walked off the job, hadn't come to work in a week, and had been told that their actions would push the company into bankruptcy. But you are right, somehow the company wasn't compassionate enough to give them unearned money that didn't exist.
You are naive. No company cares about you, they only care about money. If you provide ANYTHING to a company, you should demand payment for it.
I have over 30 years of experience in tech, mostly in Silicon Valley, but also a few years working for defense contractors in northern Virginia, and several years in East Asia (China and Japan). I am not naive.
During that time I have formed many deep friendships with managers, and with people I managed. The people at the companies I worked for certainly seemed to care about me, about my family, and about my professional development. Nearly everyone I have worked with has been decent and constructive.
I have also met a few cynical shitheads who contribute nothing, and often get themselves into toxic situations that confirm their world view. You sound like one of these.
Why would you give sound, actionable, FREE advice to your shitty ex-employer.
Because they actually weren't that shitty. They were trying to do the right thing, but just failing at it.
There are plenty of people that need to learn to do their jobs better, but they are not malicious or uncaring, just incompetent.
In Hollywood movies, bad things happen because evil people make them happen. Real life is rarely like that.
Telling other people you plan to ${ fire | lay off | downsize } them is just basic human decency.
... and nearly all companies do that. When companies do immediate layoffs with no severance it is usually because the are bankrupt and going out of business, and the "evil" managers are losing their jobs as well.
Oh, but businesses have no basic human decency.
Most of them do ... because it is good business.
Can you name a single company that, in the last decade, did a mass layoff with immediate effect and no severance?
Then these companies want to do an exit interview to figure out why you're leaving and make you feel guilty
I have never heard of an exit interview trying to make anyone feel guilty. If they are going to try to convince you to stay, that would happen before the exit interview.
I have quit a few jobs. Each time I gave them a several page document that explained what I saw as the problems in their company and what I thought they should do to fix things. In at least one instance, many of my suggestions were implemented, and several of my ex-coworkers thanked me for writing the document, which management had circulated around the company.
Try to be part of the solution, instead of just a whiner.
No C88 is correct. It's mostly wishful thinking in play here.
Scientific pessimists have a long track record of being dead wrong.
It is not wishful thinking to believe that they are wrong yet again.
Neither solar nor wind require specific breakthroughs. Any number of scientific advances would be enough. We could find replacements for the "rare" materials. We could find ways to use them more efficiently. We could find new deposits on the 99.9% of the earth's surface that we haven't checked yet. We could find ways to process existing deposits more efficiently. We could find a way to extract them from seawater. We could design bacteria that concentrate the elements. Any one of these breakthroughs would be enough. Betting on any one of them would be foolish. But the past has shown that betting on NO breakthroughs is even more foolish.
California has some 'rare earth' deposits worth considering.
The Mountain Pass Mine near the Nevada border on I-15 is the biggest (only?) rare earth mine in America. I believe it is currently operating, but not at full capacity.
Ironically, the mine is partly owned and run by a Chinese mining consortium.
So, the timeframe to solve materials problems is 30 years? Seems like they'd all be solved by now.
Go back 30 years, and compare that to where we are today. There have been enormous advances in materials science. We have better alloys, better polymers, better ceramics, and WAY better batteries and solar panels. 30 years ago, nanotubes had yet to be discovered, high-temperature superconductors were the new thing, and no one was doing additive manufacturing.
There is no reason to believe that progress is going to suddenly stop.