More to the point, why does the EU care if Ireland collects taxes from Apple?
Because Apple is reporting profits in Ireland that were not actually earned in Ireland. This gives Apple an unfair competitive advantage and compels other companies to seek similar tax shelters, and compels other countries to lower their corporate tax rates in a "race to the bottom".
There are two solutions: 1. Harmonize corporate income tax rates, so all countries, or at least all EU countries, tax at the same rate. 2. Stop taxing profit. Profit is very easy to manipulate and shift around. Instead, tax sales, or payroll, or dividends, or charge resource excise taxes, or infrastructure use fees, or whatever. None of those can be easily shifted between jurisdictions.
The EU's lawsuit against Ireland is trying to impose #1, but #2 would be better for Europe's economic future.
Nutrition during development in childhood has a pretty significant effect on cognitive ability
Indeed. Breastfed children average 3 IQ points higher than average.
Even more important is prenatal nutrition.
Good nutrition is not cheap, but bad nutrition is really expensive: Prison inmates have an average IQ of 87, and 3 times the average blood lead levels. Keeping one inmate locked up costs $30k/year. With 2.2M inmates in America, that comes to over $60B per year. Better prenatal and childhood nutrition could cut that in half.
So is height. But that doesn't mean short people never have tall kids.
Heredity is complex, and dumb (and poor) parents can have bright kids, and smart parents can have dumb kids.
The German system certainly has flaws, but discrimination on income is not one of them. A bright poor kid can go to a gymnasium (4 year college) tuition free.
For kids that don't do well academically, it is foolish to try to push them into an educational track that will lead to failure and waste. Apprenticeships are a very good alternative, and are far better than what America does with our academically challenged.
Why are you assuming only 'geezers' would buy that?
Because they already exist. You can buy them on Amazon. But the only place I have ever seen them advertized is in my mom's AARP newsletter.
The only reason to want a phone without a camera is if you are a technophobe, and fear complexity, which is strongly correlated with geezerhood. Otherwise you could just NOT USE IT. It adds about 100mg of mass to your phone, and near zero power consumption. If you fear the NSA, you could just tape over it, or blot it out with epoxy. But that would be foolish, because a camera can be very handy in an emergency such as a car accident or witnessed crime.
The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money
Rice University is a private institution, so this is charity, not "socialism".
They may have done a cost-benefit analysis and figured what they will lose on tuition, they will make up in endowment contributions from grateful future alumni who are earning and investing rather than trying to pay down debt.
Also, apartments can be limited to just single women or just single men.
You can discriminate for boarders, but not tenants. Boarders share living space, and generally have fewer rights than tenants. For instance, boarders are far easier to evict.
Hooters hires only female waitstaff, and requires them to be "slim and fit". They were sued, and won, since the appearance of their waitresses is critical to their business model. So the law makes reasonable exceptions.
If there is an innovative disruptive Silicon Valley genius out there who wants to do something, how about a really cheap, reliable cell phone that JUST makes calls and texts?... No camera. No games. Nothing.
If you make products for geezers, your market shrinks with every funeral.
More to the point for actual tech folks: Is it still possible to get a flip-phone without a camera?
There are several cheap flip phones with no cameras. Samsung A157 for instance. Google "flip phone without a camera" for a list of several others.
They also have a button you can push to make it say "Get off my lawn".
Seriously, why do you care? If you don't want to use the camera, then just don't use it. If you are worried about the NSA spying, then just tape or epoxy it.
Unless you are a professional photographer, a phone-cam is plenty good enough. A camera is a superfluous expense, and you likely won't even have it with you when a photo opportunity arises. There are clip on mounts and lenses that can turn a phone into a microscope or a telescopic camera.
Ever been to France ? The entire electric grid is nuke and they have the lowest rates in the EU.
... but still much higher than American electricity rates. Also, most French reactors were built many years ago, back when they were much cheaper than modern reactors. For the cost of a modern reactor, look at Hinkley Point, in the UK, but built by the French. After all the delays and cost overruns, the power produced will cost three times the UK average.
Very very few car-related jobs were predicted. Obviously someone had to make and maintain them, but that is a tiny fraction of the created jobs. The big changes were jobs for pizza deliverers, fast-food workers, and construction workers building the car-induced urban sprawl. Those were not predicted.
The other difference with the jump from horses to engines we could see or predict jobs would be required for the newfangled automobile.
This is false. Car related jobs are "obvious" in hindsight, but were not predicted at the time. The reality is that nobody worried about cars "stealing jobs", because they were such a tiny niche market.
The only near universally accepted prediction was that cars were toys for the rich, and the middle class would never be able to afford them.
It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
The difference this time is the technology curve is much steeper.
No it isn't. Productivity growth is slowing down, and has been nearly stagnant since 2004.
Previous waves of automation have taken the low hanging fruit in agriculture and manufacturing, and modern service jobs are proving much harder to automate, so it is going slower.
This, of course is bad, because a slower pace of automation means a slower pace of job growth... which is exactly what we have seen.
But now computers are starting to eliminate the service jobs
Computers have been automating service jobs for decades. When was the last time you asked a teller to withdraw $100 from your account? Or a telephone operator to place a call to your mom? Do you pay a laundress to scrub your shirts on a washboard?
... and there's nothing for those people to do once they get laid off.
That's what they said about the tellers, switchboard operators, farmers, hunter-gatherers, etc.
Indeed. For many jobs, Jevon's Paradox leads to demand going up as productivity improves.
If you ran a factory, and a machine became available that could make each worker twice as productive, and twice as profitable to employ, would you fire half of them, or hire more?
If automation really displaced workers, then Europe, America, and Japan would be impoverished, while Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Niger would be prosperous.
That makes no sense. If their kitchen is small and crappy, they'd eat out more, not less.
Indeed. In many dense Asian cities, small apartments don't even have kitchens. But street food is available on every block, and is inexpensive and very good. I'd love a steamed mushroom-leek-fennel baozi right now.
Slashdot Mirror
More to the point, why does the EU care if Ireland collects taxes from Apple?
Because Apple is reporting profits in Ireland that were not actually earned in Ireland. This gives Apple an unfair competitive advantage and compels other companies to seek similar tax shelters, and compels other countries to lower their corporate tax rates in a "race to the bottom".
There are two solutions:
1. Harmonize corporate income tax rates, so all countries, or at least all EU countries, tax at the same rate.
2. Stop taxing profit. Profit is very easy to manipulate and shift around. Instead, tax sales, or payroll, or dividends, or charge resource excise taxes, or infrastructure use fees, or whatever. None of those can be easily shifted between jurisdictions.
The EU's lawsuit against Ireland is trying to impose #1, but #2 would be better for Europe's economic future.
Nutrition during development in childhood has a pretty significant effect on cognitive ability
Indeed. Breastfed children average 3 IQ points higher than average.
Even more important is prenatal nutrition.
Good nutrition is not cheap, but bad nutrition is really expensive: Prison inmates have an average IQ of 87, and 3 times the average blood lead levels. Keeping one inmate locked up costs $30k/year. With 2.2M inmates in America, that comes to over $60B per year. Better prenatal and childhood nutrition could cut that in half.
More importantly, don't make announcements that are false. He said he had funding secured. He didn't, and he knew he didn't.
Martha Stewart went to prison for less than this.
Intelligence is inheritable.
So is height. But that doesn't mean short people never have tall kids.
Heredity is complex, and dumb (and poor) parents can have bright kids, and smart parents can have dumb kids.
The German system certainly has flaws, but discrimination on income is not one of them. A bright poor kid can go to a gymnasium (4 year college) tuition free.
For kids that don't do well academically, it is foolish to try to push them into an educational track that will lead to failure and waste. Apprenticeships are a very good alternative, and are far better than what America does with our academically challenged.
Why are you assuming only 'geezers' would buy that?
Because they already exist. You can buy them on Amazon. But the only place I have ever seen them advertized is in my mom's AARP newsletter.
The only reason to want a phone without a camera is if you are a technophobe, and fear complexity, which is strongly correlated with geezerhood. Otherwise you could just NOT USE IT. It adds about 100mg of mass to your phone, and near zero power consumption. If you fear the NSA, you could just tape over it, or blot it out with epoxy. But that would be foolish, because a camera can be very handy in an emergency such as a car accident or witnessed crime.
One semester of bad grades, and out the door German college students go.
That seems like a good incentive for students to do their best.
German 'poors' are routed into apprenticeships, same as their parents were.
No, German 'dumbs' are routed into apprenticeships. It is based on aptitude, not income.
And there is nothing wrong with apprenticeships. They are a good option for people that are not academically gifted.
I went to college and did an apprenticeship in metal working. Knowing how to use a metal lathe and CNC mill turned out to be very useful life skills.
The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money
Rice University is a private institution, so this is charity, not "socialism".
They may have done a cost-benefit analysis and figured what they will lose on tuition, they will make up in endowment contributions from grateful future alumni who are earning and investing rather than trying to pay down debt.
Also, apartments can be limited to just single women or just single men.
You can discriminate for boarders, but not tenants. Boarders share living space, and generally have fewer rights than tenants. For instance, boarders are far easier to evict.
Hooters hires only female waitstaff, and requires them to be "slim and fit". They were sued, and won, since the appearance of their waitresses is critical to their business model. So the law makes reasonable exceptions.
If there is an innovative disruptive Silicon Valley genius out there who wants to do something, how about a really cheap, reliable cell phone that JUST makes calls and texts? ... No camera. No games. Nothing.
If you make products for geezers, your market shrinks with every funeral.
More to the point for actual tech folks: Is it still possible to get a flip-phone without a camera?
There are several cheap flip phones with no cameras. Samsung A157 for instance. Google "flip phone without a camera" for a list of several others.
They also have a button you can push to make it say "Get off my lawn".
Seriously, why do you care? If you don't want to use the camera, then just don't use it. If you are worried about the NSA spying, then just tape or epoxy it.
Unless you are a professional photographer, a phone-cam is plenty good enough. A camera is a superfluous expense, and you likely won't even have it with you when a photo opportunity arises. There are clip on mounts and lenses that can turn a phone into a microscope or a telescopic camera.
"All the waste put together would fill a FOOTBALL FIELD!!!"
Is this some new form of deception that I don't understand?
Yes, you are being deceived.
A "football field" is an AREA, while the waste fills a VOLUME. So they aren't even comparable.
Yucca mountain, a facility totally inappropriate to contain nuclear waste because it is pumice.
What's wrong with pumice?
Yes, but Nevada is a red state
Nevada is a purple state. In 2016, NV voted for Hillary, and elected a Democrat to replace Harry Reid.
Ever been to France ? The entire electric grid is nuke and they have the lowest rates in the EU.
... but still much higher than American electricity rates. Also, most French reactors were built many years ago, back when they were much cheaper than modern reactors. For the cost of a modern reactor, look at Hinkley Point, in the UK, but built by the French. After all the delays and cost overruns, the power produced will cost three times the UK average.
If Trump were serious about promoting nuclear, he would open Yucca Mountain.
He is president, not dictator. YM is blocked by congress. Harry Reid is gone, so there is hope, but Donald can't do anything until congress acts.
Explain that a fuel recycling facility fed from this storage buffer would provide high-quality jobs for Nevadans.
That is logical, but nuclear policy isn't about logic.
Anyway, continuing to store waste on-site is good enough for several more decades. YM is not a critical path problem.
Very very few car-related jobs were predicted. Obviously someone had to make and maintain them, but that is a tiny fraction of the created jobs. The big changes were jobs for pizza deliverers, fast-food workers, and construction workers building the car-induced urban sprawl. Those were not predicted.
Saying "the robots will do everything" is just ignorance of comparative advantage.
The other difference with the jump from horses to engines we could see or predict jobs would be required for the newfangled automobile.
This is false. Car related jobs are "obvious" in hindsight, but were not predicted at the time. The reality is that nobody worried about cars "stealing jobs", because they were such a tiny niche market.
The only near universally accepted prediction was that cars were toys for the rich, and the middle class would never be able to afford them.
It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
The difference this time is the technology curve is much steeper.
No it isn't. Productivity growth is slowing down, and has been nearly stagnant since 2004.
Previous waves of automation have taken the low hanging fruit in agriculture and manufacturing, and modern service jobs are proving much harder to automate, so it is going slower.
This, of course is bad, because a slower pace of automation means a slower pace of job growth ... which is exactly what we have seen.
But now computers are starting to eliminate the service jobs
Computers have been automating service jobs for decades. When was the last time you asked a teller to withdraw $100 from your account? Or a telephone operator to place a call to your mom? Do you pay a laundress to scrub your shirts on a washboard?
... and there's nothing for those people to do once they get laid off.
That's what they said about the tellers, switchboard operators, farmers, hunter-gatherers, etc.
It's not a zero sum game.
Indeed. For many jobs, Jevon's Paradox leads to demand going up as productivity improves.
If you ran a factory, and a machine became available that could make each worker twice as productive, and twice as profitable to employ, would you fire half of them, or hire more?
If automation really displaced workers, then Europe, America, and Japan would be impoverished, while Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Niger would be prosperous.
That makes no sense. If their kitchen is small and crappy, they'd eat out more, not less.
Indeed. In many dense Asian cities, small apartments don't even have kitchens. But street food is available on every block, and is inexpensive and very good. I'd love a steamed mushroom-leek-fennel baozi right now.
On GAN's generally, since no actual research is linked to, here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1406.266...
That was a profoundly influential paper. A must read for anyone interested in modern AI.
Ian Goodfellow, the primary author, also co-authored Deep Learning, the best book available for learning about deep neural nets.
It really takes a special kind of person to consider an old document as being better at handling new problems than us today.
Perhaps. But I trust Jefferson and Madison a lot more than I trust Trump and Clinton.