Rent seeking is a code-word for a coercive business transaction. I don't think it fits Apple's situation.
Indeed. What is described in TFA is not "rent-seeking".
Also, most people have Amazon Prime for the free shipping on their stuff. The movies are music are just extra benefits. The cost is $10 per month. So why would 50 million people pay $30/month for a worse deal? Answer: They wouldn't.
Bundling phone repair into a monthly service package will just encourage people to fix their phones and keep them longer, which is the last thing Apple wants.
Apple is the most profitable company in the history of the world. I don't think they need advice from some random journalist about what they are doing wrong.
There is possibility it falls down at different rate. If it falls up, then how is GR going to describe this behavior ?
Neither falling up nor falling at a different rate is consistent with GR.
We can tell by the recoil effect in nuclear reactions that the inertial mass of particles and anti-particles are identical. GR says the gravitational mass must also be identical. So if it isn't, GR would be overturned, and we would need some new theories to explain how the universe works.
Don't hold your breath. If this experiment shows that AM "falls up" it is more likely to be an equipment failure than a correct result. It is that unlikely.
How much inertia it has, however, does not necessarily mean that it reacts to gravity the same way as normal matter.
General Relativity is based on the assumption that inertial mass and gravitational mass are equivalent. IM=GM is one of those things, like P!=NP, "No FTL", and the Riemann Hypothesis, that everyone assumes, so a confirmation will have little effect. However if the answer is IM!=GM, physics will be turned upside down.
Let's talk about how a lot of Incels and white nationalists need some serious psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy has a poor track record, The evidence that it is effective is ambiguous. It is least likely to work when the underlying social issues go unaddressed. The incels still aren't getting laid. The WNs still have to see brown people.
We are all nerds here, so we should be looking for technical solutions. For the incels, a good solution would be more realistic sexbots. For the WNs, we could make AR goggles that make everyone they see look white.
Most people use their smartphones for data/texting these days, rather than voice calls.
Even when I am voicing, I put the phone on speaker and hold it about 30 cm in front of my face. I never put it up to my ear unless I need both hands on the steering wheel.
College loans that you spend half your life paying back are mostly an American thing. Most of these protestors are outside the USA, where education is much more affordable. The downside is that they have no student rec centers with saunas, climbing walls, and acai bowl bars.
Chomsky famously called it a "black box inside their heads."
Noam Chomsky was being a bit modest. He did more than anyone to figure out what is going on inside that black box, and what innate language learning ability children are born with, which is far more than the "tabla rasa" theory pushed by behaviorists. Chomsky learned that all human languages, even those invented by isolated groups of children, have nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. All of them have words for discussing hypotheticals, and situations separated in both time and place from the here-and-now.
Chomsky wasn't right about everything. He believed that all human languages were based on recursive grammars, and for decades this was thought to be correct. But recently it was reported that the Pirahã language does not allow recursive phrases.
Most power usage is during the day, and solar plants could easily cover this peak usage.
Power consumption peaks at 4-7pm when businesses are still open, but plenty of people are arriving home to warm houses and turning on the AC. By 4pm, solar is producing way less than earlier in the day, and by 7pm it is producing almost none.
When used on untrained people, lie detectors have an accuracy rate of about 65%. Clearly that is not enough, in itself, to draw any serious conclusions, such as guilt or innocence. But it also is clearly better than "flipping a coin".
Many of the "tricks" used in the past, such as the old thumb-tack-under-the-toe trick, no longer work because they now require you to remove your shoes. So if you ever have to take a polygraph test, make sure you wear clean socks. They also put sensors on your abdomen to detect clenching, another way to cheat.
Polygraphs don't work at all on some people, but these people usually get an "inconclusive" score because they show no reaction to the control questions as well as to the real questions.
$2k/month is completely implausible. There is no way that is affordable.
Most UBI proposals are for about $500/month, and even that requires dismantling Social Security, which would deprive tens of millions of people of their retirement income, generating a firestorm of political opposition.
The problem with UBI is that the "losers" (elderly and people above median income) are WAY more politically organized than the "winners" (the young and poor). I can't see it happening in our political system.
polygraphs are about as effective as flipping a coin.
Not true. Polygraphs don't work on people trained to defeat them. They don't work on some people at all. But for most people most of the time, they work fairly well. They are far below the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of a criminal court, but are certainly better than "flipping a coin".
Polygraph effectiveness is exaggerated by some. Its ineffectiveness is exaggerated by others. The truth is in the middle.
I'm sure this will be much better though - more on par with rolling dice.
Preliminary work based on NN observations of micro-expressions has shown it to be surprisingly effective.
Thats the probelm - the people who were injured get pennies or nothing and lose the right to sue, while a handful of lawyers get... $2.12 million??
That is not justice.
Then what do you suggest instead? 1. No lawsuit at all? (the GPP's solution) 2. A 6 cent check to anyone willing to pay the printing and postage fee? 3. Use Google Search free for a year? 4. ???
Disclaimer: I use Google Search, so 6 cents of that money is MINE, and I am happy to see it go to a university. I plan to deduct it as a donation on my taxes.
If it goes to court and they win, then the judge adds in legal fees.
More often than not this does NOT happen. Both sides pay their own legal fees.
The rare exceptions are usually when the judge thinks the case is frivolous (plaintiff pays defendants fees) or slam-dunk (defendant pays plaintiff fees).
It is cheap now but what happens when it becomes scarce?
Helium is currently worth recovering from natural gas when the concentration is 3 to 4%.
When it becomes scarce, it will be cost effective to recover it from gas containing 1-2%. This helium is currently "wasted" by leaving it in the NG.
How many other things are causing issues now because the cost of recovery isn't worth the cost to just waste it?
America consumes 22 TRILLION cubic feet of natural gas annually, which contains helium. Perhaps you should worry about that rather than the 121 liters that leaked in a one-off accident in a hospital.
There is little correlation between MRI use and medical outcome. For most patients, there appears to be no benefit in terms of diagnosis or effectiveness of treatment. It is mostly just a tool for jacking up hospital bills.
They learned that the union shop is the first one to be automated, outsourced, or off-shored.
they go to their job that pays well and is safe because of a Union from 50 years ago who won those protections at the barrel of a gun.
Sure, but what have they done for us lately? Saying we should pay union dues today because unions made sense 50 years ago isn't a very compelling argument.
$250k-$400k is just so little money lawyers aren't going to bother?
Correct. They wouldn't bother. It takes a team of lawyers, and they have to pay their staff, rent, taxes, etc. And there is a VERY good chance that the case will fall apart, class action status will be denied, or they will lose in court. Then they get $0, but still have to pay their staff, and the rent, etc. They might even get counter-sued.
These suits are like lotteries for lawyers
That is exactly what they are. So how may lottery tickets could you sell for $1 if you have a one-in-a-million chance to win, and the payoff is $5? The payoff has to be high enough to make the risk worthwhile.
If class action suits were really the "easy money" that you seem to believe, then there would be WAY more of them. Next time you get screwed over by a defective product or crappy service, go try to get a lawyer to take your case on contingency for the "easy money". Good luck.
I think the solution is to simply invert that to opt out by default.
If this was the case, the lawsuit in TFA against Google would have never happened. Corporations would be free to act with impunity as long as their misbehavior was widely distributed.
There is absolutely no way that it is cost effective to get 100 million people to "opt-in" when the damages are a few cents each.
On the other hand the lawyers can't bring the cases all on their own without an injured party
They just need one lead client to represent the class. In this case the three lead clients received $5000 each for doing basically nothing. The lawyers will not have any problem recruiting lead clients.
Slashdot Mirror
Rent seeking is a code-word for a coercive business transaction. I don't think it fits Apple's situation.
Indeed. What is described in TFA is not "rent-seeking".
Also, most people have Amazon Prime for the free shipping on their stuff. The movies are music are just extra benefits. The cost is $10 per month. So why would 50 million people pay $30/month for a worse deal? Answer: They wouldn't.
Bundling phone repair into a monthly service package will just encourage people to fix their phones and keep them longer, which is the last thing Apple wants.
Apple is the most profitable company in the history of the world. I don't think they need advice from some random journalist about what they are doing wrong.
Lastly, Apple was never an "inventor".
There is a natural feature that makes all of Nevada attractive. Its called No State Income Tax.
You can get that in Alaska, Florida, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming.
New Hampshire and Tennessee tax dividends and capital gains, but have no tax on earned income.
There is possibility it falls down at different rate. If it falls up, then how is GR going to describe this behavior ?
Neither falling up nor falling at a different rate is consistent with GR.
We can tell by the recoil effect in nuclear reactions that the inertial mass of particles and anti-particles are identical. GR says the gravitational mass must also be identical. So if it isn't, GR would be overturned, and we would need some new theories to explain how the universe works.
Don't hold your breath. If this experiment shows that AM "falls up" it is more likely to be an equipment failure than a correct result. It is that unlikely.
How much inertia it has, however, does not necessarily mean that it reacts to gravity the same way as normal matter.
General Relativity is based on the assumption that inertial mass and gravitational mass are equivalent. IM=GM is one of those things, like P!=NP, "No FTL", and the Riemann Hypothesis, that everyone assumes, so a confirmation will have little effect. However if the answer is IM!=GM, physics will be turned upside down.
Which would be pretty cool.
Let's talk about how a lot of Incels and white nationalists need some serious psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy has a poor track record, The evidence that it is effective is ambiguous. It is least likely to work when the underlying social issues go unaddressed. The incels still aren't getting laid. The WNs still have to see brown people.
We are all nerds here, so we should be looking for technical solutions. For the incels, a good solution would be more realistic sexbots. For the WNs, we could make AR goggles that make everyone they see look white.
Most people use their smartphones for data/texting these days, rather than voice calls.
Even when I am voicing, I put the phone on speaker and hold it about 30 cm in front of my face. I never put it up to my ear unless I need both hands on the steering wheel.
And a rat doesn't have enough body area to get rid of heat as easily as a large human
This is backwards. A rat has a higher surface to volume ratio.
College loans that you spend half your life paying back are mostly an American thing. Most of these protestors are outside the USA, where education is much more affordable. The downside is that they have no student rec centers with saunas, climbing walls, and acai bowl bars.
Chomsky famously called it a "black box inside their heads."
Noam Chomsky was being a bit modest. He did more than anyone to figure out what is going on inside that black box, and what innate language learning ability children are born with, which is far more than the "tabla rasa" theory pushed by behaviorists. Chomsky learned that all human languages, even those invented by isolated groups of children, have nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. All of them have words for discussing hypotheticals, and situations separated in both time and place from the here-and-now.
Chomsky wasn't right about everything. He believed that all human languages were based on recursive grammars, and for decades this was thought to be correct. But recently it was reported that the Pirahã language does not allow recursive phrases.
Most power usage is during the day, and solar plants could easily cover this peak usage.
Power consumption peaks at 4-7pm when businesses are still open, but plenty of people are arriving home to warm houses and turning on the AC. By 4pm, solar is producing way less than earlier in the day, and by 7pm it is producing almost none.
When used on untrained people, lie detectors have an accuracy rate of about 65%. Clearly that is not enough, in itself, to draw any serious conclusions, such as guilt or innocence. But it also is clearly better than "flipping a coin".
Many of the "tricks" used in the past, such as the old thumb-tack-under-the-toe trick, no longer work because they now require you to remove your shoes. So if you ever have to take a polygraph test, make sure you wear clean socks. They also put sensors on your abdomen to detect clenching, another way to cheat.
Polygraphs don't work at all on some people, but these people usually get an "inconclusive" score because they show no reaction to the control questions as well as to the real questions.
you canâ(TM)t buy liquor in the winter.
Why can't you buy liquor in the winter?
Ethanol doesn't freeze until the temp hits -173F. Even Alaska doesn't get that cold.
$2k/month is completely implausible. There is no way that is affordable.
Most UBI proposals are for about $500/month, and even that requires dismantling Social Security, which would deprive tens of millions of people of their retirement income, generating a firestorm of political opposition.
The problem with UBI is that the "losers" (elderly and people above median income) are WAY more politically organized than the "winners" (the young and poor). I can't see it happening in our political system.
polygraphs are about as effective as flipping a coin.
Not true. Polygraphs don't work on people trained to defeat them. They don't work on some people at all. But for most people most of the time, they work fairly well. They are far below the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of a criminal court, but are certainly better than "flipping a coin".
Polygraph effectiveness is exaggerated by some. Its ineffectiveness is exaggerated by others. The truth is in the middle.
I'm sure this will be much better though - more on par with rolling dice.
Preliminary work based on NN observations of micro-expressions has shown it to be surprisingly effective.
Thats the probelm - the people who were injured get pennies or nothing and lose the right to sue, while a handful of lawyers get... $2.12 million??
That is not justice.
Then what do you suggest instead?
1. No lawsuit at all? (the GPP's solution)
2. A 6 cent check to anyone willing to pay the printing and postage fee?
3. Use Google Search free for a year?
4. ???
Disclaimer: I use Google Search, so 6 cents of that money is MINE, and I am happy to see it go to a university. I plan to deduct it as a donation on my taxes.
If it goes to court and they win, then the judge adds in legal fees.
More often than not this does NOT happen. Both sides pay their own legal fees.
The rare exceptions are usually when the judge thinks the case is frivolous (plaintiff pays defendants fees) or slam-dunk (defendant pays plaintiff fees).
Does the losing side have to pay?
utterly rejected and despised by many on Slashdot.
NASAs research priorities and budgets are not set by the Slashdot consensus. So what does it matter what people here think?
It is cheap now but what happens when it becomes scarce?
Helium is currently worth recovering from natural gas when the concentration is 3 to 4%.
When it becomes scarce, it will be cost effective to recover it from gas containing 1-2%. This helium is currently "wasted" by leaving it in the NG.
How many other things are causing issues now because the cost of recovery isn't worth the cost to just waste it?
America consumes 22 TRILLION cubic feet of natural gas annually, which contains helium. Perhaps you should worry about that rather than the 121 liters that leaked in a one-off accident in a hospital.
There is little correlation between MRI use and medical outcome. For most patients, there appears to be no benefit in terms of diagnosis or effectiveness of treatment. It is mostly just a tool for jacking up hospital bills.
Employees didn't learn a god damn thing.
They learned that the union shop is the first one to be automated, outsourced, or off-shored.
they go to their job that pays well and is safe because of a Union from 50 years ago who won those protections at the barrel of a gun.
Sure, but what have they done for us lately? Saying we should pay union dues today because unions made sense 50 years ago isn't a very compelling argument.
$250k-$400k is just so little money lawyers aren't going to bother?
Correct. They wouldn't bother. It takes a team of lawyers, and they have to pay their staff, rent, taxes, etc. And there is a VERY good chance that the case will fall apart, class action status will be denied, or they will lose in court. Then they get $0, but still have to pay their staff, and the rent, etc. They might even get counter-sued.
These suits are like lotteries for lawyers
That is exactly what they are. So how may lottery tickets could you sell for $1 if you have a one-in-a-million chance to win, and the payoff is $5? The payoff has to be high enough to make the risk worthwhile.
If class action suits were really the "easy money" that you seem to believe, then there would be WAY more of them. Next time you get screwed over by a defective product or crappy service, go try to get a lawyer to take your case on contingency for the "easy money". Good luck.
I think the solution is to simply invert that to opt out by default.
If this was the case, the lawsuit in TFA against Google would have never happened. Corporations would be free to act with impunity as long as their misbehavior was widely distributed.
There is absolutely no way that it is cost effective to get 100 million people to "opt-in" when the damages are a few cents each.
On the other hand the lawyers can't bring the cases all on their own without an injured party
They just need one lead client to represent the class. In this case the three lead clients received $5000 each for doing basically nothing. The lawyers will not have any problem recruiting lead clients.
Have you considered the possibility that the mental decline preceded, and perhaps contributed to, your decision to bash your head into things?
The "harmed class" is everyone who ever used Google Search.
There isn't exactly a list of these people with names and addresses to send them each a check for 20 cents (sent postage due).
Giving some money to a few universities seems like a reasonable compromise. What else could they do?