How does handing out random money increase the value of the money the VC funders have put into the startup accelerator
Well, look at it this way. As automation increases, due to these very startups and their peers, the available number of jobs will decrease. So now, do you want your neighbors robbing you, or hanging out relatively peacefully, painting watercolors or whatever? Seems like a very good time to test these waters (not that this instance is a decent test, it's not, $12k/yr is ridiculously low in this economy), before people begin to experience desperation.
And in so doing, this provides some insurance that these Y-folk and those like them can continue to invent more and better automation. Without, you know, the torches and pitchforks coming out.
This will create no jobs
Again, jobs are going to go away due to automation. The point of real UBI (which, again, this isn't) is not to create jobs. It's to make sure people can survive what's almost certain to be coming, which will be an employment drought of unprecedented magnitude. Barring natural disaster, war, etc.
You can keep pretending things will just keep going along as they have been, but eventually it'll come home to roost, no matter how firm your convictions are otherwise. As automation proves to be cheaper, faster, better, it will eat the jobs market like wildfire.
Same here. And I am sure it will be a very significant tax hit, which I will duly pony up. I like the idea of everyone having enough to live on, a comfortable and climate-controlled place to shelter, food on the table, and medical care.
The results aren't relevant anyway, as at its best, $12000/yr isn't enough to live on unless you live under a bridge, so the whole "will people still work" and "what might they do otherwise" bit falls flat on its face. This isn't a UBI test. This is an "auntie Sarah died and left you a tiny bit of money which you can't get at all at once anyway" test.
It's not basic. It's not universal, either. It is income, but so is that $100 bill you got for xmas.
It amazes me how often these "tests" get the whole idea completely wrongheaded... and then people run around saying "test X proves..." when all it really proves is its not a test of UBI at all.
I happily give them my phone number. I just don't answer my phone except for whitelisted numbers that have a non-mute ringtone. Solves all manner of problems. A mute ringtone is one that makes zero noise, and that's the default on my phone.
The day of unplanned voice telephone comms from random callers is past for me. You want me, then email me, or text me. We can arrange a phone call if need be; but cold calls? No. Not happening. Telemarketers and various other forms of similar lowlife have shit that bed beyond all recovery.
I don't pay any attention to voice messaging, either. The idea of someone trying leave me a voice message fills me with glee... they just spent some fraction of their life for nothing.
They may wreck texting eventually as well. But perhaps not. The same filtering that works (and very well, too) with email could work with texting. Whitelists, smart filtering... bring it on, I say.
Apple and Google are the abusive employer. Developers need to unionise.
I write MacOS / OSX apps. Don't have any dealings at all with Apple's app store, nor do I plan to — really not a fan of Apple, the company, though I'm reasonably pleased with the computer (not phone) OS. Nor do I plan to "unionize", inasmuch as I'm not employed by them in the first place. Apple does not pay me anything, nor I them.
Tempest in a teapot, at least as far as MacOS / OSX goes.
Yeah, sure, <del> is a "harmful" tag. Go back to trying to learn HTML. You have a lot more work to do. Also, "passive-aggresssive" isn't the point. There are many uses for such tags. Including the very positive one of raising the level of discourse beyond grade school errors.
Naw, nevermind, you wouldn't understand.
Assumption will get you an umption to go along with your error.
I don't know what kind of software you develop, but we have on-site development only for security concerns. Not only that, but certain developer offices are physically locked to prevent unauthorized access.
What a horrible work environment. I wouldn't even consider it. If an employer can't trust me, why in the world would I want to work for it? Odds are excellent the job is doing something toxic to society anyway, or it wouldn't be dragged down by such things. And yes, that certainly applies to jobs in the so-called "defense" sector.
[I am reminded of Apple's trashcan Mac Pro,the crippled Mac mini, unremediated bugs and toxic deprecations in OSX/MacOS, the stupid touch bar on the Macbook, the absolutely ridiculous charging port on the bottom of the Magic Mouse...] - no, apparently not.
If the people running slashdot (this week... who is it now?) call you for a job interview, you'd be wise to tell them that you'd really prefer not to work for someone who doesn't properly maintain their software.
That's precisely why I refuse to pay to travel for interviews.
At this point, it makes no sense to travel for tech interviews anyway. You can go face-to-face with any modern computer, and it's a waste of time and resources for both parties to travel any significant distance. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if your prospective employer is that mired in the past, you should already be wary.
Same thing goes for insisting you do software on-site. Remote tasking for software is 100% practical and workable. If the employer has failed to their head(s) around that as of this late date, be wary. At the very least. Someone's probably got their head wrapped around looking over their empire and feeling smug, when all they should be focused on is getting things done in the best possible way. Uprooting people for no good reason is never the best possible way to treat them.
yeah, this. I posted essentially the same thing. Your post wasn't here when I started typing - but I admit to drinking coffee and didn't get it written very fast.:)
"Recipients of these confidential emails won't be able to copy, paste, download, print or forward the message, and attachments will be disabled," notes Engadget.
This is utterly ridiculous bullshit. As long as you can do a screen capture or simply photograph the screen, the recipient can create a record of the email. "Confidential emails" my ass.
Script kiddy skills are. Deep programming skills aren't, and are unlikely to ever be. Automation will take them before they could ever become a commodity, barring a truly radical change in programming technology.
You're confusing the emergence of new technology with the maintenance of existing technology. They are separate issues. There is every reason to create a more advanced product; there is no reason not to provide for a replaceable battery in an old one.
I can see why they want to do this as they have a lot of original content, and they have a point as to how people would find out about it otherwise.
There's plenty of room on the home display where the various content is arranged to select from. And of course there is the very effective viral "have you seen X?" effect when something of broad interest comes out.
Don't make the error of thinking they have no way to let you know about new content without taking this step. They do.
Subscriptions are, in a nutshell, planned obsolescence via threats. The only way you can keep such tempware working is a continual drain on your resources - it's designed to fail you otherwise.
I wouldn't buy subscription software under any circumstances, nor will I ever offer it (I'm a developer.)
You invest in my stuff, it'll keep working - it's yours now. I don't "license" it to you, I don't tell you what you can or cannot do with it, and I won't break it. If I offer a paid upgrade, then you get new stuff. It won't break your previous stuff, and it also won't turn into dead bytes on your computer.
If we put the onus on manufacturers (and programmers) to maintain their products instead of abandoning them, it's absolutely no different than them giving us a new product with whatever imaginary, or actual, malware you have in mind. If they're black hats, they're black hats.
The important objective in that case is keeping an eye on them, and a more stable / less ephemeral product line can only work in our favor in such undertakings. If product maker X is found to have shipped flaw or problem Y, then they are obligated to fix it, instead of just leaving it in the dust and whipping out a new model (I'm thinking of OS vendors here as well as supporting devs and hardware manufacturers.)
Requiring manufacturers and software operations to maintain their products or lose IP rights to them could be a very strong component of bringing some of the more obnoxious operations into line with actually benefiting the public with their work. If I, as a developer, stop supporting it, or won't remedy a detected flaw, then the public owns the product and that's the end of my revenue stream and my rights to the ideas and inventions incorporated in the product are now gone.
Our software and hardware IP system is badly broken, and IMHO that's a fundamental underpinning of why our products are such throwaways. There's no reason for a manufacturer / developer to keep working on X. We need to give them good reason to stay with it.
These days, almost any product can be flashed with completely new code; at least, if the designers aren't idiots. Everything from a smart light bulb to a router, firewall, or car should be updatable and should have updates. Likewise, you write software like I do, then you should fix the problems it has, particularly so in the case of security issues, but anything else, too. There's no adequate excuse to not fix broken code. From the OS end, there are almost no good excuses to break existing applications, security being the one exception.
We should recognize our obligation to not just produce product, but to produce good product that doesn't shaft the end user, either initially or later.
The culture of disposable hardware and software we've fallen into is bad on just about very level one might consider. Ending it, or at least, ameliorating it, would be the very best thing for every consumer out there.
Why in the name of FSM are these things WiFi enabled? Why is that circuitry in there?
Supervisor / lawyer / etc.: We need the bodycam footage Cop: Um, dropped it in the canal / off a cliff / lost it by accident, sorry, storage and camera lost Judge: Case decided in favor of cop's verbal testimony
Only if supply and demand were in equal balance in setting the price at the beginning.
With very few exceptions, all of which are either full on luxury products for the rich or desperately needed resources for everyone else, all generally stable markets are price sensitive when faced with artificial barriers. Increase the price unreasonably, decrease the market. Even just the perception of an unreasonable price increase (and any tariff-induced increase is viewed this way by any buyer who actually cares about their funds) can be enough to turn a buyer away unless we're talking luxury or desperation.
It's not a question of oversupply. It's a question of need. Barring need, markets will erode in the face of unreasonable price escalation. And price escalation consequent to artificial price increases mandated by the government can't be explained away as reasonable unless you're blind, dumb, and stupid. The apparent imbalance is due to real world factors imposed by different economic systems. You can't fix that with a tariff, only with actual change to the economic system itself. Or IOW, it's not going to be as cheap to make steel in the US as it is elsewhere as long as our economy is significantly different. None of that erases the knowledge in the buyer's mind that they're paying more than they otherwise would have to, and that, in turn, affects purchasing trends.
You either do it (a lot) better to earn a higher price and so can earn your market in the eye(s) of the buyer(s), or you will be facing either a reduced market due to legit competition from elsewhere, or a reduced market due to artificial barriers.
"I'd buy that for a dollar" is not "I'd buy that for $10" when money actually matters.
Finally, someone has drilled down to the correct answer. The customer / end user / taxpayer always ends up paying when costs increase.
Tariffs increase costs of imports. In our economy, locally produced materials cost more than imports. Either way, end products cost more, and that ends up eroding the wallet of those who ultimately pay the bills.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, look at it this way. As automation increases, due to these very startups and their peers, the available number of jobs will decrease. So now, do you want your neighbors robbing you, or hanging out relatively peacefully, painting watercolors or whatever? Seems like a very good time to test these waters (not that this instance is a decent test, it's not, $12k/yr is ridiculously low in this economy), before people begin to experience desperation.
And in so doing, this provides some insurance that these Y-folk and those like them can continue to invent more and better automation. Without, you know, the torches and pitchforks coming out.
Again, jobs are going to go away due to automation. The point of real UBI (which, again, this isn't) is not to create jobs. It's to make sure people can survive what's almost certain to be coming, which will be an employment drought of unprecedented magnitude. Barring natural disaster, war, etc.
You can keep pretending things will just keep going along as they have been, but eventually it'll come home to roost, no matter how firm your convictions are otherwise. As automation proves to be cheaper, faster, better, it will eat the jobs market like wildfire.
Same here. And I am sure it will be a very significant tax hit, which I will duly pony up. I like the idea of everyone having enough to live on, a comfortable and climate-controlled place to shelter, food on the table, and medical care.
The results aren't relevant anyway, as at its best, $12000/yr isn't enough to live on unless you live under a bridge, so the whole "will people still work" and "what might they do otherwise" bit falls flat on its face. This isn't a UBI test. This is an "auntie Sarah died and left you a tiny bit of money which you can't get at all at once anyway" test.
It's not basic. It's not universal, either. It is income, but so is that $100 bill you got for xmas.
It amazes me how often these "tests" get the whole idea completely wrongheaded... and then people run around saying "test X proves..." when all it really proves is its not a test of UBI at all.
I happily give them my phone number. I just don't answer my phone except for whitelisted numbers that have a non-mute ringtone. Solves all manner of problems. A mute ringtone is one that makes zero noise, and that's the default on my phone.
The day of unplanned voice telephone comms from random callers is past for me. You want me, then email me, or text me. We can arrange a phone call if need be; but cold calls? No. Not happening. Telemarketers and various other forms of similar lowlife have shit that bed beyond all recovery.
I don't pay any attention to voice messaging, either. The idea of someone trying leave me a voice message fills me with glee... they just spent some fraction of their life for nothing.
They may wreck texting eventually as well. But perhaps not. The same filtering that works (and very well, too) with email could work with texting. Whitelists, smart filtering... bring it on, I say.
It's mostly an indulgence. I'm old. :)
I write MacOS / OSX apps. Don't have any dealings at all with Apple's app store, nor do I plan to — really not a fan of Apple, the company, though I'm reasonably pleased with the computer (not phone) OS. Nor do I plan to "unionize", inasmuch as I'm not employed by them in the first place. Apple does not pay me anything, nor I them.
Tempest in a teapot, at least as far as MacOS / OSX goes.
Keep those blinkers on. You wouldn't want to see anywhere but straight ahead; it's terrifying out there.
Going right for the gold, eh? Classy.
Yeah, sure, <del> is a "harmful" tag. Go back to trying to learn HTML. You have a lot more work to do. Also, "passive-aggresssive" isn't the point. There are many uses for such tags. Including the very positive one of raising the level of discourse beyond grade school errors.
Assumption will get you an umption to go along with your error.
I think people working on ICBM software are traitors to the human race.
Can I be any clearer about this for you?
What a horrible work environment. I wouldn't even consider it. If an employer can't trust me, why in the world would I want to work for it? Odds are excellent the job is doing something toxic to society anyway, or it wouldn't be dragged down by such things. And yes, that certainly applies to jobs in the so-called "defense" sector.
[I am reminded of Apple's trashcan Mac Pro,the crippled Mac mini, unremediated bugs and toxic deprecations in OSX/MacOS, the stupid touch bar on the Macbook, the absolutely ridiculous charging port on the bottom of the Magic Mouse...] - no, apparently not.
Oh. You probably meant McJob.
Never mind. :)
perspective ==> prospective
<rant>
<del>test</del>: test ...broken ...broken ...broken
<strike>test</strike>: test
<s>test</s>: test
It's bloody 2018 and slashdot still doesn't support strikeout... FFS, no wonder the site is dying.
That should have been able to be written as:
<del> perspective </del> prospective
...or...
<strike> perspective </strike> prospective
If the people running slashdot (this week... who is it now?) call you for a job interview, you'd be wise to tell them that you'd really prefer not to work for someone who doesn't properly maintain their software.
</rant>
At this point, it makes no sense to travel for tech interviews anyway. You can go face-to-face with any modern computer, and it's a waste of time and resources for both parties to travel any significant distance. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if your prospective employer is that mired in the past, you should already be wary.
Same thing goes for insisting you do software on-site. Remote tasking for software is 100% practical and workable. If the employer has failed to their head(s) around that as of this late date, be wary. At the very least. Someone's probably got their head wrapped around looking over their empire and feeling smug, when all they should be focused on is getting things done in the best possible way. Uprooting people for no good reason is never the best possible way to treat them.
yeah, this. I posted essentially the same thing. Your post wasn't here when I started typing - but I admit to drinking coffee and didn't get it written very fast. :)
This is utterly ridiculous bullshit. As long as you can do a screen capture or simply photograph the screen, the recipient can create a record of the email. "Confidential emails" my ass.
Script kiddy skills are. Deep programming skills aren't, and are unlikely to ever be. Automation will take them before they could ever become a commodity, barring a truly radical change in programming technology.
You're confusing the emergence of new technology with the maintenance of existing technology. They are separate issues. There is every reason to create a more advanced product; there is no reason not to provide for a replaceable battery in an old one.
There's plenty of room on the home display where the various content is arranged to select from. And of course there is the very effective viral "have you seen X?" effect when something of broad interest comes out.
Don't make the error of thinking they have no way to let you know about new content without taking this step. They do.
Subscriptions are, in a nutshell, planned obsolescence via threats. The only way you can keep such tempware working is a continual drain on your resources - it's designed to fail you otherwise.
I wouldn't buy subscription software under any circumstances, nor will I ever offer it (I'm a developer.)
You invest in my stuff, it'll keep working - it's yours now. I don't "license" it to you, I don't tell you what you can or cannot do with it, and I won't break it. If I offer a paid upgrade, then you get new stuff. It won't break your previous stuff, and it also won't turn into dead bytes on your computer.
Truly, Beau, that's just nonsensical.
If we put the onus on manufacturers (and programmers) to maintain their products instead of abandoning them, it's absolutely no different than them giving us a new product with whatever imaginary, or actual, malware you have in mind. If they're black hats, they're black hats.
The important objective in that case is keeping an eye on them, and a more stable / less ephemeral product line can only work in our favor in such undertakings. If product maker X is found to have shipped flaw or problem Y, then they are obligated to fix it, instead of just leaving it in the dust and whipping out a new model (I'm thinking of OS vendors here as well as supporting devs and hardware manufacturers.)
Requiring manufacturers and software operations to maintain their products or lose IP rights to them could be a very strong component of bringing some of the more obnoxious operations into line with actually benefiting the public with their work. If I, as a developer, stop supporting it, or won't remedy a detected flaw, then the public owns the product and that's the end of my revenue stream and my rights to the ideas and inventions incorporated in the product are now gone.
Our software and hardware IP system is badly broken, and IMHO that's a fundamental underpinning of why our products are such throwaways. There's no reason for a manufacturer / developer to keep working on X. We need to give them good reason to stay with it.
These days, almost any product can be flashed with completely new code; at least, if the designers aren't idiots. Everything from a smart light bulb to a router, firewall, or car should be updatable and should have updates. Likewise, you write software like I do, then you should fix the problems it has, particularly so in the case of security issues, but anything else, too. There's no adequate excuse to not fix broken code. From the OS end, there are almost no good excuses to break existing applications, security being the one exception.
We should recognize our obligation to not just produce product, but to produce good product that doesn't shaft the end user, either initially or later.
The culture of disposable hardware and software we've fallen into is bad on just about very level one might consider. Ending it, or at least, ameliorating it, would be the very best thing for every consumer out there.
Supervisor / lawyer / etc.: We need the bodycam footage
Cop: Um, dropped it in the canal / off a cliff / lost it by accident, sorry, storage and camera lost
Judge: Case decided in favor of cop's verbal testimony
With very few exceptions, all of which are either full on luxury products for the rich or desperately needed resources for everyone else, all generally stable markets are price sensitive when faced with artificial barriers. Increase the price unreasonably, decrease the market. Even just the perception of an unreasonable price increase (and any tariff-induced increase is viewed this way by any buyer who actually cares about their funds) can be enough to turn a buyer away unless we're talking luxury or desperation.
It's not a question of oversupply. It's a question of need. Barring need, markets will erode in the face of unreasonable price escalation. And price escalation consequent to artificial price increases mandated by the government can't be explained away as reasonable unless you're blind, dumb, and stupid. The apparent imbalance is due to real world factors imposed by different economic systems. You can't fix that with a tariff, only with actual change to the economic system itself. Or IOW, it's not going to be as cheap to make steel in the US as it is elsewhere as long as our economy is significantly different. None of that erases the knowledge in the buyer's mind that they're paying more than they otherwise would have to, and that, in turn, affects purchasing trends.
You either do it (a lot) better to earn a higher price and so can earn your market in the eye(s) of the buyer(s), or you will be facing either a reduced market due to legit competition from elsewhere, or a reduced market due to artificial barriers.
"I'd buy that for a dollar" is not "I'd buy that for $10" when money actually matters.
You also forgot to mention that the end product price goes up, the market shrinks, and the economy follows it.
Well said. Thanks.
Finally, someone has drilled down to the correct answer. The customer / end user / taxpayer always ends up paying when costs increase.
Tariffs increase costs of imports. In our economy, locally produced materials cost more than imports. Either way, end products cost more, and that ends up eroding the wallet of those who ultimately pay the bills.