My porches have screens - my bedrooms have fans - you'd be amazed how many months out of the year that A/C is not at all necessary, even in places like Miami.
In the late 1960s / early 1970s, it was common to both have A/C and open the windows in the months when it was not needed. Today, so many buildings are designed with fixed glass, never opening windows... sure, it's more efficient when the A/C is running, but does running the A/C 365 days a year translate to better efficiency, or health of the building's occupants?
I've noticed in several cities that the older homes, especially those built in the 1930s and before, are well situated to get breezes and moderate temperatures, while the later developments don't really care, they just slap in a bunch of curved streets with cul-de-sacs and call it a neighborhood. The newer homes and offices have to run A/C because they're stuck out in the drained swamps where nobody in their right mind would be in the middle of summer.
Government waste is only exceeded by waste in successful corporations. Sure, little scrappy companies are fast, lean and efficient, but when a corporation reaches 10K employees and years of consecutive growth, take a look on the inside and see how many "Wally"s the place has, how much structural BS exists for no particular reason other than "that's how it's done here."
Government waste is continually scrutinized by the taxpayers, but when a corporation has been "exceeding shareholder expectations" for a decade or more - you'd be amazed at the colossal waste that goes on inside.
It's called "attractive nuisance" and there is plenty of legal precedence for manufacturer liability, let's start with yard darts and extrapolate just how much more dangerous a self-driving Tesla is.
But, where's my daily death defying stunt of sprinting 10 miles in 9 minutes alongside 30,000lb behemoths that are barely aware of my existence? Having to anticipate the movements of hundreds of other people piloting two tons of steel at a mile a minute, any one of which could cause serious property damage, injury or death to me and my family, or worse, turn the tables on us and drag us through court for a liability case? Without all this adrenaline pumping through everybody's veins all the time, it will fundamentally alter the neurochemistry of society... for the better? Hard to say.
In 1997ish Nielsen services paid me something like $30 a month to put spyware on my PC and watch what websites I browsed. I think I played along for about 2 years, but then their software wasn't compatible with the new browser I wanted to use, so I dropped them. Seemed like a fair trade, it was 99% unobtrusive and I really didn't care if they watched what I did on the computer.
We got the kindle with ads - it's not a big deal, the ads are 97% less intrusive than lead-ins on YouTube, or normal broadcast TV. I wouldn't want it on my phone, but for the 12 year old's tablet, yeah, it was a good financial trade.
Companies pay huge amounts to show you their crap. Advertising/marketing accounts for anywhere from 20% (bigger ticket) to 90% (more niche/fad oriented) of the cost of products on the commercial market.
Some people get to be (and stay) poor by having poor impulse control, particularly impulse buying. Brick and mortar snack shops attached to gas stations are a testament to this fact.
Neither do I. However, there's a huge part of the population who think "$50 is $50, if I can get it for $50 less, that's $50 I can spend on ______". I'm guessing that it's not a majority, but with a potential customer base of Billions, even if Amazon only sells this to 0.01% of the world, that's a huge hit.
Now now, people who buy iPhones "think different" - their kind of intelligence can't be measured with the same scale as people who do things like comparison shop.
Roads are colossally expensive (most people's homes cost less than their share of the national highway system), and it's justified on the grounds of economic necessity... but they have this tremendous recreational side use, losing that will put a major kink in the current psychological balance of life in the Western world - if you can't just go "take a spin" for $0.50/mile anywhere, anytime you want, that's going to be a life changer for a lot of people.
I don't mind the idea of driverless cars - I do happen to enjoy driving my own cars and sincerely hope that taxpayer supported (roads and such) passtime isn't taken away from me.
There's really no dilemma here - the cars' driving algorithms are designed by a company with general liability issues. The company is no more beholden to the safety of their customers than they are the safety of the people they put at risk while serving their customers - both can sue them into oblivion for deliberate decisions to value one life over another.
Meanwhile, it's going to be 20 years or more before driverless cars' sensor systems and AI are anywhere near precise enough to tell a stationary pedestrian apart from a mailbox or shrub.
What this really is is a plot element for fictional stories, where super-villains reprogram their cars to break the rules of human decency.
The present system is supposedly run as a system of independent companies, and yes, their data is flawed and their appeals process is arbitrary and far from fair. I think the addition of another company (similar to the Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac model, private - self funding, but with an explicit government charter and backing) that uses similar data sources, but provides actual transparency in their methods and endeavors to serve the consumer rather than the creditors could be a good solution. Now, where do you get funding for such a beast? Good question... I would think that a lot of creditors would want a more accurate alternative to the current credit rating companies, enabling them to make better decisions on loan candidates who appear marginal - some will come much cleaner in a fair reporting system, some won't, that information is valuable.
I think the bot is asking you whether or not you could possibly fabricate evidence, or at least a story that can't be refuted, that one of those things are true.
Whenever I have interacted with parking ticket appeals systems, they appear to be a formula lottery - appeal within 45 days and you have a 60% chance of being granted the appeal, presuming you don't write in the reason box something along the lines of "because you all are a bunch of arbitrary idiots and I saw you parking illegally last week too." (Even that might get granted, I think when time's up for reading they throw half in the granted box and half in the denied box.) After the appeals deadline is passed, then it's all over.
Regardless of how good your justification or timeliness of appeal, there's still a strong chance that the appeal is denied, thank you for playing, this case is now closed.
Slashdot Mirror
My porches have screens - my bedrooms have fans - you'd be amazed how many months out of the year that A/C is not at all necessary, even in places like Miami.
In the late 1960s / early 1970s, it was common to both have A/C and open the windows in the months when it was not needed. Today, so many buildings are designed with fixed glass, never opening windows... sure, it's more efficient when the A/C is running, but does running the A/C 365 days a year translate to better efficiency, or health of the building's occupants?
I've noticed in several cities that the older homes, especially those built in the 1930s and before, are well situated to get breezes and moderate temperatures, while the later developments don't really care, they just slap in a bunch of curved streets with cul-de-sacs and call it a neighborhood. The newer homes and offices have to run A/C because they're stuck out in the drained swamps where nobody in their right mind would be in the middle of summer.
Government waste is only exceeded by waste in successful corporations. Sure, little scrappy companies are fast, lean and efficient, but when a corporation reaches 10K employees and years of consecutive growth, take a look on the inside and see how many "Wally"s the place has, how much structural BS exists for no particular reason other than "that's how it's done here."
Government waste is continually scrutinized by the taxpayers, but when a corporation has been "exceeding shareholder expectations" for a decade or more - you'd be amazed at the colossal waste that goes on inside.
Kids have been listening to their Dad's favorite music, on car radios, ever since car radios were invented.
If a crackhead can sell it for $20, it's gonna get hit.
Spray paint FTW.
It's called "attractive nuisance" and there is plenty of legal precedence for manufacturer liability, let's start with yard darts and extrapolate just how much more dangerous a self-driving Tesla is.
GPS tracking, high decibel alarms, flame throwers - the usual anti-theft methods used on cars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
But, where's my daily death defying stunt of sprinting 10 miles in 9 minutes alongside 30,000lb behemoths that are barely aware of my existence? Having to anticipate the movements of hundreds of other people piloting two tons of steel at a mile a minute, any one of which could cause serious property damage, injury or death to me and my family, or worse, turn the tables on us and drag us through court for a liability case? Without all this adrenaline pumping through everybody's veins all the time, it will fundamentally alter the neurochemistry of society... for the better? Hard to say.
Keep wishing.
In 1997ish Nielsen services paid me something like $30 a month to put spyware on my PC and watch what websites I browsed. I think I played along for about 2 years, but then their software wasn't compatible with the new browser I wanted to use, so I dropped them. Seemed like a fair trade, it was 99% unobtrusive and I really didn't care if they watched what I did on the computer.
I think when you root the phone they send you an "upgrade" bill, as their ad showing software won't be phoning home anymore.
We got the kindle with ads - it's not a big deal, the ads are 97% less intrusive than lead-ins on YouTube, or normal broadcast TV. I wouldn't want it on my phone, but for the 12 year old's tablet, yeah, it was a good financial trade.
Companies pay huge amounts to show you their crap. Advertising/marketing accounts for anywhere from 20% (bigger ticket) to 90% (more niche/fad oriented) of the cost of products on the commercial market.
Some people get to be (and stay) poor by having poor impulse control, particularly impulse buying. Brick and mortar snack shops attached to gas stations are a testament to this fact.
Neither do I. However, there's a huge part of the population who think "$50 is $50, if I can get it for $50 less, that's $50 I can spend on ______". I'm guessing that it's not a majority, but with a potential customer base of Billions, even if Amazon only sells this to 0.01% of the world, that's a huge hit.
Now now, people who buy iPhones "think different" - their kind of intelligence can't be measured with the same scale as people who do things like comparison shop.
Roads are colossally expensive (most people's homes cost less than their share of the national highway system), and it's justified on the grounds of economic necessity... but they have this tremendous recreational side use, losing that will put a major kink in the current psychological balance of life in the Western world - if you can't just go "take a spin" for $0.50/mile anywhere, anytime you want, that's going to be a life changer for a lot of people.
I don't mind the idea of driverless cars - I do happen to enjoy driving my own cars and sincerely hope that taxpayer supported (roads and such) passtime isn't taken away from me.
There's really no dilemma here - the cars' driving algorithms are designed by a company with general liability issues. The company is no more beholden to the safety of their customers than they are the safety of the people they put at risk while serving their customers - both can sue them into oblivion for deliberate decisions to value one life over another.
Meanwhile, it's going to be 20 years or more before driverless cars' sensor systems and AI are anywhere near precise enough to tell a stationary pedestrian apart from a mailbox or shrub.
What this really is is a plot element for fictional stories, where super-villains reprogram their cars to break the rules of human decency.
The present system is supposedly run as a system of independent companies, and yes, their data is flawed and their appeals process is arbitrary and far from fair. I think the addition of another company (similar to the Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac model, private - self funding, but with an explicit government charter and backing) that uses similar data sources, but provides actual transparency in their methods and endeavors to serve the consumer rather than the creditors could be a good solution. Now, where do you get funding for such a beast? Good question... I would think that a lot of creditors would want a more accurate alternative to the current credit rating companies, enabling them to make better decisions on loan candidates who appear marginal - some will come much cleaner in a fair reporting system, some won't, that information is valuable.
I think the bot is asking you whether or not you could possibly fabricate evidence, or at least a story that can't be refuted, that one of those things are true.
Whenever I have interacted with parking ticket appeals systems, they appear to be a formula lottery - appeal within 45 days and you have a 60% chance of being granted the appeal, presuming you don't write in the reason box something along the lines of "because you all are a bunch of arbitrary idiots and I saw you parking illegally last week too." (Even that might get granted, I think when time's up for reading they throw half in the granted box and half in the denied box.) After the appeals deadline is passed, then it's all over.
Regardless of how good your justification or timeliness of appeal, there's still a strong chance that the appeal is denied, thank you for playing, this case is now closed.
No, rather, I want the credit rating system fixed so that its data is sufficiently reliable to base sentencing decisions on.
So, it sounds like it's time for sidewinders filled with paint and a little fly-off...