Absolutely, the more libraries that are available, the less time programmers need to implement behaviors that can utilize those libraries. But even today, when the number of open source libraries are clearly accelerating (and has nearly doubled in the year since that chart), there has been no slowing of programming jobs.
We also have to consider that the appetite for what software developers can create may simply be insatiable.
Something similar can be said about this prediction in general. Before the programmer who is automating job X is laid off, the person currently performing job X will be laid off due to the new program. Programmers will outlast the positions they are automating.
Which is easier, programmers moving on to another automation, or the replaced employee learning a different skill?
If I were the author, I'd worry less about the programmer and more about how this world will handle the potential mass unemployment situation.
Whoa there. Just because we don't want the government running every little detail about our health care, doesn't mean we want anarchy.
I'll put it the way a friend put it to me: "Regulations aren't bad. Bad regulations are bad." The ACA is a regulation that has good parts but where the bad outweighs the good.
Not only is it bad, but it's not likely to get better. It was passed in such a polarizing fashion that nobody wants to fix it; the Republicans want nothing except to repeal it completely, and the Democrats feel it is so sacred that it should not be touched.
Future iterations that have better lens quality and higher field of view could make use of eye tracking to determine what location of the viewable area should be rendered optimally.
Considering automation is coming either way, at least my system is reducing the need to automate by allowing wages to go down on jobs that would otherwise be automated away. Is it just delaying the inevitable? Perhaps, but until we figure out a good solution for the day that automation reduces us to less than 50% employment, we should probably delay as much as possible.
a guaranteed minimum income that can be clawed back, say, 50 cents on the dollar for earnings over a certain amount
This is Wealth Redistribution 101, and is what I meant by "redistribute wealth" in my original post. Sorry that I obviously didn't meet your standard of defining every single phrase I use inline.
a guaranteed minimum income that can be clawed back . . . to provide an incentive to work
That makes no sense at all. It's quite the opposite. How is it an "incentive", a reward, for the government to clawback more of your money as you make more? It isn't.
But that's not what such a plan is aiming for. Its chief goal is to require those who have benefited highly from what our society offers (the wealthy) to provide a safety net for those who put forth effort and those who take risks. This provides no more incentive to become rich, because becoming rich is incentive enough.
I saw this first-hand when one of the largest hardware chains did a strategic bankruptcy, laid everyone off, and the next day, offered them their former jobs, at less than the minimum wage, with a government subsidy to make up the difference. It was pretty bad walking in there and seeing staff I knew all of a sudden working for less than half what they used to make. And of course, when the subsidy ran out, they got fired and others were hired, and THEY collected the subsidy.
I'm not seeing how that situation applies here. If the government subsidy is increased to the point that it at least provides the same wage as before, then the workers would take home the same amount. They get paid directly by the government, and the subsidy doesn't run out.
Also, some people have no choice but to survive purely off the system. There are plenty of retirees in that position, people who have lost everything due to illness, people who can no longer work because of an acquired handicap, etc. So, your plan offers them zero.
Sure, I didn't specify but this plan is for only those who can work. The current system, or comparable system, can be put into place for those who cannot work or other special circumstances.
It's dumber than dumb, because it fails to create ANY quality jobs, and reduces everyone to serfdom, because that's what happens when businesses see subsidies - they are VERY good at gaming the system.
The subsidies are directly from the government to the employees. Corporations never touch them.
Sure, the jobs aren't all that productive. But people who are unemployed have exactly zero productivity anyway, so total productivity is increasing even if it's not by a large factor. Also consider the benefits to society... we get people off the streets, reduce crime by reducing poverty, and put currently-unemployed people into a job where they have the chance to gain experience and learn new skills (which can turn into future productivity).
In this system I proposed, they would do some kind of work. The work might not be worth much but it will be worth at least a little to some employer. Society benefits by getting them off the streets.
Also, being exposed to work on a daily basis may entice the employee to improve skills for even higher wages. This plan gets them in the system where they at least have the chance to get experience doing more and more until they are truly productive.
If you tie it to hours worked, then it no longer functions as an income redistribution plan, since those who work fewer hours under your scheme get less. It's not my fault if you don't understand the mechanics of current income redistribution schemes now in operation, which involves a base amount, clawbacks for people earning over the base amount, and is not tied to hours worked.
I'm not talking about a current system. I'm talking about a new strategy.
Fine, whatever, you obviously understand what I'm going for.
Your scheme not only fails the goal of income redistribution - it's also incredibly easy to game. . ..
This has been brought up in another comment off my first one, so I redirect you there instead of repeating some ideas about handling this situation.
unless your original proposal included that someone who is unable to find work gets nothing
So in one paragraph you propose that this will fail because people will create zero-productivity "jobs" to get the government subsidy, and in the next you propose it will fail because people will somehow still be out of jobs?
One of the goals of this idea is to reduce unemployment, hopefully to zero. There's probably a sweet spot where the government provides lower subsidies based on time worked, so that people won't be able to survive purely off gaming the system. I've discussed this elsewhere, feel free to have a look.
Also, feel free to enlighten us with ideas for improvement instead of repeating issues discussed in other threads.
One improvement is to limit the government's distribution to 40 hours/week.
Another improvement could be to reduce the amount provided by the government. Instead of what we currently consider minimum wage, it could be a smaller amount (say $5/hour) that is too little for someone to live on without some additional compensation. Employers would need to provide at least $2 or $3 per hour to make it worth people's time to work.
The exact numbers would be produced by economic analysts and statisticians and other people who are much, much smarter than I am about this kind of thing. I would imagine that the numbers could be calculated so as to minimize unemployment, minimize government subsidies, and maximize wages.
So you seriously, literally, cannot see these words:
10 hours X $7.25 guaranteed wage
Because they are there. I repeated them in my previous post and again here. Here, I'll do it again a few times:
10 hours X $7.25 guaranteed wage
10 hours X $7.25 guaranteed wage
10 hours X $7.25 guaranteed wage
10 hours X $7.25 guaranteed wage
The calculation of $72.50 for the week is clearly, unambiguously, built from the per-hour rate of $7.25 multiplied by the number of hours, which in the example is 10. I'm sorry if my failure to specify this 10 times (or perhaps 40 times) has impeded your ability to understand language.
My example was a side job, obviously, since it is only 10 hours a week. 40 hours a week under this structure is $19,240 per year, which is 27.5% more than a (federal) minimum wage employee makes today.
Next time perhaps you should check the numbers before complaining about my math.
But rich people don't provide as much lobby power as corporations (which do not have the same limits on campaign finance that actual people do). Corporations that employ unskilled labor will profit highly from reducing minimum wage, so they would actually be more likely to back this plan.
I agree with that. I don't care much for free rides either, but even with moral considerations aside, society benefits from helping our poorest. Nobody wants homeless people wandering the streets, or dying folks clogging the ER from illnesses that could have been prevented with just a little intervention. And reducing poverty reduces crime.
I consider helping the poor as an investment. To some extent, every dollar society spends on the poorest will benefit society by much more.
Taking another perspective, your plan essentially gives every employer a $7.25/hour/employee tax credit, with no defined mechanism to recoup the losses.
I defined this; the government pays for it. Government revenues come from taxes, thus taxes would need to increase.
And frankly, those taxes would need to increase on the wealthy. So the end result is that this shifts the burden from unskilled labor employers (including both wealthy and non-wealthy employers) to all wealthy citizens.
Until someone else comes along and offers $1.50 an hour. Then the next guy offers $1, and so on, racing to the bottom.
Since the company's able to hire so cheap, they bring in a hundred such workers to boost their employment numbers.
This assumes an infinite supply of labor, which does not exist.
and of course the tax rate isn't going to be 100%, so there is no way for the government to actually afford to pay its guaranteed wage.
That wouldn't happen. Assuming that there are 160 million employable Americans, at the current minimum wage of $7.25 and assuming full time employment for all, that would come to about $2.4 trillion. This is far less than the current ~$17 trillion GDP of the US.
Is $7.25/hour the right number? I don't know, I just used the current system. We could certainly try a compromise, say keep a real minimum wage of $2/hour while the government subsidizes $5.25/hour. Or whatever, the nuances of what the real numbers should be would certainly be decided by people much smarter than I am.
It's a pretty straightforward government subsidy supporting corporations.
Absolutely. But remember, this is coupled with a government tax on the wealthiest. I don't see why subsidizing corporations is a problem so long as those who profit the most are required to give back to the societal system that supported the production of those profits.
Sorry for the formatting issues... I submitted with the first line inside quote tags but they didn't show up after submitting. And the non-beta side of Slashdot is for whatever reason cutting off the last half of the post.
Will we go the "Player Piano" route and guarantee a wage, or we will we go full GOP derp and just hope they die?
We can learn something from both the liberal and conservative views. I'd like us to both guarantee a wage, and eliminate the minimum wage.
Let me explain. Minimum wage directly affects only those employers whose business model depends on low-wage, unskilled labor. But wages can be guaranteed directly by society (via government) instead. Take the following example:
You hire someone to take after-hours calls at home, jotting down any messages received. It's a part time job, about 10 hours per week, and typically about 2 or 3 calls an hour come in, and otherwise that employee can do whatever... watch TV, read a book, work on some other job, play games, whatever. You both agree $2/hour is an acceptable wage. But, with minimum wage laws, you're on the hook for $7.25/hour. You decide that is too expensive, and replace the employee with an answering machine. It's not your wish, after all the answering machine lacks true human feedback. And of course, the potential employee doesn't have any job or income. Sucks all around.
Now let's say we push the burden of guaranteed wage on society instead of the employer. Government writes that employee a check for $72.50 every week (10 hours X $7.25 guaranteed wage). The employee also gets $2/hour from the employer. Society gets what it wants by providing employment opportunities to everyone.
So if we are going to redistribute wealth, let's put that burden directly on society instead of placing it on markets and industries that thrive with unskilled labor.
The only way to increase wealth by reducing the number of jobs is to increase the worth of the remaining jobs or to increase material trade.
Jobs are a form of trade (trading your services for money). Every trade/transaction provides both parties an increase of value or worth; the employer deems the services received to be worth more than the money, and the employee deems the money to be worth more than his or her time. Throw billions or trillions of transactions together, you have an economy.
So reducing the number of jobs (transactions) directly negatively impacts the economy.
Fine, but if the jobs are better and/or material trade increases, doesn't that build wealth?
Even material trades rely on jobs. Every bit of wealth in our economy can be traced back to some physical labor. Gold, oil, food, and all materials are worthless until someone harvests those items. Many items also are refined or otherwise made more valuable by labor, such as sewing cotton to make a shirt. So it all goes back to jobs.
I doubt the loss in number of jobs will be offset by how valuable the remaining jobs are. Even if it is, scarcity will eventually become a factor, as material possessions lose value (due to consumption or depreciation) and only the elite robot owners/operators will have replacement items. Those elites will have all the wealth, and more and more of the remainder of the human population will lose wealth.
So I highly doubt wealth is innately created by destroying jobs, and even if it is, it will only serve to increase the chasm between the rich and the poor.
there should be no requirement to drive on said roads other than proof of citizenship
Our society, democratic/republican/whatever, has decided through legal means (enacting and enforcing laws) to place restrictions on the use of public roads. Driver licensing is such an example.
Drivers licenses are unconsitutional
No, you made that up.
no way to opt out if you choose to not use the roads
Not true.
Well, the minute you stole the money from my pocket to build the roads, it became my right to use them.
Again, no.
There's lots of things tax dollars provide that you can't just use any way you want. Society has decided that citizens cannot access restricted government areas that are built with tax dollars. You don't have a right to fly a NASA rocket. You don't have a right to take a soldier's gun and shoot people. You don't have a right to rape a government official.
You do have a right to learn about how society and government work. I encourage doing so, lest you might continue to appear as an idiot.
Agreed, if someone is using some ancient esoteric device, they need to understand that the only free-as-in-beer option is to live with an older kernel.
Now they have plenty of paid options. Get a newer, better supported device (if available). Pay to get new security fixes ported back to the older kernel. Pay to get support for the device in the newer kernel. Or, of course, they could try their hand at making kernel changes.
Keeping a modern platform stuck in the past will suck the life out of it.
Usage of social media is equivalent to unsupervised communication with people outside the prison walls. To my knowledge this has always been a big deal and whatever technology is used shouldn't make much of a difference in punishment. Even seemingly innocent communications can be forms of steganography.
Also, I'm pretty sure inmates who commit murder will be charged with murder.
It's only false advertising if objective statements are provably false. "Sound is the betterz" is not an objective statement.
But you might be able to win a case if you can show that several run-of-the-mill Ethernet cables produce the same error rate that the $10,000 cable does. Then by showing that the same transmission results in the same audio output, you could then prove that the $10,000 cable provides no sound quality benefits as it claims.
I suspect this cable has at least a tiny advantage in error rate, so it comes down to whether it's worth $9990 to someone for that tiny advantage, which is subjective.
I'm curious if they will offer bundles with Office 365 and Xbox Live Gold. Say at $299/year, you can put Windows on 5 computers, Office on 5 computers, and you get up to 5 Xbox Live Gold accounts.
Slashdot Mirror
Absolutely, the more libraries that are available, the less time programmers need to implement behaviors that can utilize those libraries. But even today, when the number of open source libraries are clearly accelerating (and has nearly doubled in the year since that chart), there has been no slowing of programming jobs.
We also have to consider that the appetite for what software developers can create may simply be insatiable.
Something similar can be said about this prediction in general. Before the programmer who is automating job X is laid off, the person currently performing job X will be laid off due to the new program. Programmers will outlast the positions they are automating.
Which is easier, programmers moving on to another automation, or the replaced employee learning a different skill?
If I were the author, I'd worry less about the programmer and more about how this world will handle the potential mass unemployment situation.
Whoa there. Just because we don't want the government running every little detail about our health care, doesn't mean we want anarchy.
I'll put it the way a friend put it to me: "Regulations aren't bad. Bad regulations are bad." The ACA is a regulation that has good parts but where the bad outweighs the good.
Not only is it bad, but it's not likely to get better. It was passed in such a polarizing fashion that nobody wants to fix it; the Republicans want nothing except to repeal it completely, and the Democrats feel it is so sacred that it should not be touched.
The experience would be less than ideal.
Future iterations that have better lens quality and higher field of view could make use of eye tracking to determine what location of the viewable area should be rendered optimally.
Considering automation is coming either way, at least my system is reducing the need to automate by allowing wages to go down on jobs that would otherwise be automated away. Is it just delaying the inevitable? Perhaps, but until we figure out a good solution for the day that automation reduces us to less than 50% employment, we should probably delay as much as possible.
a guaranteed minimum income that can be clawed back, say, 50 cents on the dollar for earnings over a certain amount
This is Wealth Redistribution 101, and is what I meant by "redistribute wealth" in my original post. Sorry that I obviously didn't meet your standard of defining every single phrase I use inline.
a guaranteed minimum income that can be clawed back . . . to provide an incentive to work
That makes no sense at all. It's quite the opposite. How is it an "incentive", a reward, for the government to clawback more of your money as you make more? It isn't.
But that's not what such a plan is aiming for. Its chief goal is to require those who have benefited highly from what our society offers (the wealthy) to provide a safety net for those who put forth effort and those who take risks. This provides no more incentive to become rich, because becoming rich is incentive enough.
I saw this first-hand when one of the largest hardware chains did a strategic bankruptcy, laid everyone off, and the next day, offered them their former jobs, at less than the minimum wage, with a government subsidy to make up the difference. It was pretty bad walking in there and seeing staff I knew all of a sudden working for less than half what they used to make. And of course, when the subsidy ran out, they got fired and others were hired, and THEY collected the subsidy.
I'm not seeing how that situation applies here. If the government subsidy is increased to the point that it at least provides the same wage as before, then the workers would take home the same amount. They get paid directly by the government, and the subsidy doesn't run out.
Also, some people have no choice but to survive purely off the system. There are plenty of retirees in that position, people who have lost everything due to illness, people who can no longer work because of an acquired handicap, etc. So, your plan offers them zero.
Sure, I didn't specify but this plan is for only those who can work. The current system, or comparable system, can be put into place for those who cannot work or other special circumstances.
It's dumber than dumb, because it fails to create ANY quality jobs, and reduces everyone to serfdom, because that's what happens when businesses see subsidies - they are VERY good at gaming the system.
The subsidies are directly from the government to the employees. Corporations never touch them.
Sure, the jobs aren't all that productive. But people who are unemployed have exactly zero productivity anyway, so total productivity is increasing even if it's not by a large factor. Also consider the benefits to society... we get people off the streets, reduce crime by reducing poverty, and put currently-unemployed people into a job where they have the chance to gain experience and learn new skills (which can turn into future productivity).
In this system I proposed, they would do some kind of work. The work might not be worth much but it will be worth at least a little to some employer. Society benefits by getting them off the streets.
Also, being exposed to work on a daily basis may entice the employee to improve skills for even higher wages. This plan gets them in the system where they at least have the chance to get experience doing more and more until they are truly productive.
If you tie it to hours worked, then it no longer functions as an income redistribution plan, since those who work fewer hours under your scheme get less. It's not my fault if you don't understand the mechanics of current income redistribution schemes now in operation, which involves a base amount, clawbacks for people earning over the base amount, and is not tied to hours worked.
I'm not talking about a current system. I'm talking about a new strategy.
Fine, whatever, you obviously understand what I'm going for.
Your scheme not only fails the goal of income redistribution - it's also incredibly easy to game. . . .
This has been brought up in another comment off my first one, so I redirect you there instead of repeating some ideas about handling this situation.
unless your original proposal included that someone who is unable to find work gets nothing
So in one paragraph you propose that this will fail because people will create zero-productivity "jobs" to get the government subsidy, and in the next you propose it will fail because people will somehow still be out of jobs?
One of the goals of this idea is to reduce unemployment, hopefully to zero. There's probably a sweet spot where the government provides lower subsidies based on time worked, so that people won't be able to survive purely off gaming the system. I've discussed this elsewhere, feel free to have a look.
Also, feel free to enlighten us with ideas for improvement instead of repeating issues discussed in other threads.
That's all around a good point.
One improvement is to limit the government's distribution to 40 hours/week.
Another improvement could be to reduce the amount provided by the government. Instead of what we currently consider minimum wage, it could be a smaller amount (say $5/hour) that is too little for someone to live on without some additional compensation. Employers would need to provide at least $2 or $3 per hour to make it worth people's time to work.
The exact numbers would be produced by economic analysts and statisticians and other people who are much, much smarter than I am about this kind of thing. I would imagine that the numbers could be calculated so as to minimize unemployment, minimize government subsidies, and maximize wages.
So you seriously, literally, cannot see these words:
10 hours X $7.25 guaranteed wage
Because they are there. I repeated them in my previous post and again here. Here, I'll do it again a few times:
10 hours X $7.25 guaranteed wage
10 hours X $7.25 guaranteed wage
10 hours X $7.25 guaranteed wage
10 hours X $7.25 guaranteed wage
The calculation of $72.50 for the week is clearly, unambiguously, built from the per-hour rate of $7.25 multiplied by the number of hours, which in the example is 10. I'm sorry if my failure to specify this 10 times (or perhaps 40 times) has impeded your ability to understand language.
Read.
$72.50 every week (10 hours X $7.25 guaranteed wage)
$72.50 is for 10 hours. 40 hours would be $290 every week from the government, on top of any wage paid by the employer.
My example was a side job, obviously, since it is only 10 hours a week. 40 hours a week under this structure is $19,240 per year, which is 27.5% more than a (federal) minimum wage employee makes today.
Next time perhaps you should check the numbers before complaining about my math.
But rich people don't provide as much lobby power as corporations (which do not have the same limits on campaign finance that actual people do). Corporations that employ unskilled labor will profit highly from reducing minimum wage, so they would actually be more likely to back this plan.
I agree with that. I don't care much for free rides either, but even with moral considerations aside, society benefits from helping our poorest. Nobody wants homeless people wandering the streets, or dying folks clogging the ER from illnesses that could have been prevented with just a little intervention. And reducing poverty reduces crime.
I consider helping the poor as an investment. To some extent, every dollar society spends on the poorest will benefit society by much more.
Taking another perspective, your plan essentially gives every employer a $7.25/hour/employee tax credit, with no defined mechanism to recoup the losses.
I defined this; the government pays for it. Government revenues come from taxes, thus taxes would need to increase.
And frankly, those taxes would need to increase on the wealthy. So the end result is that this shifts the burden from unskilled labor employers (including both wealthy and non-wealthy employers) to all wealthy citizens.
Until someone else comes along and offers $1.50 an hour. Then the next guy offers $1, and so on, racing to the bottom.
Since the company's able to hire so cheap, they bring in a hundred such workers to boost their employment numbers.
This assumes an infinite supply of labor, which does not exist.
and of course the tax rate isn't going to be 100%, so there is no way for the government to actually afford to pay its guaranteed wage.
That wouldn't happen. Assuming that there are 160 million employable Americans, at the current minimum wage of $7.25 and assuming full time employment for all, that would come to about $2.4 trillion. This is far less than the current ~$17 trillion GDP of the US.
Is $7.25/hour the right number? I don't know, I just used the current system. We could certainly try a compromise, say keep a real minimum wage of $2/hour while the government subsidizes $5.25/hour. Or whatever, the nuances of what the real numbers should be would certainly be decided by people much smarter than I am.
It's a pretty straightforward government subsidy supporting corporations.
Absolutely. But remember, this is coupled with a government tax on the wealthiest. I don't see why subsidizing corporations is a problem so long as those who profit the most are required to give back to the societal system that supported the production of those profits.
Sorry for the formatting issues... I submitted with the first line inside quote tags but they didn't show up after submitting. And the non-beta side of Slashdot is for whatever reason cutting off the last half of the post.
Will we go the "Player Piano" route and guarantee a wage, or we will we go full GOP derp and just hope they die?
We can learn something from both the liberal and conservative views. I'd like us to both guarantee a wage, and eliminate the minimum wage.
Let me explain. Minimum wage directly affects only those employers whose business model depends on low-wage, unskilled labor. But wages can be guaranteed directly by society (via government) instead. Take the following example:
You hire someone to take after-hours calls at home, jotting down any messages received. It's a part time job, about 10 hours per week, and typically about 2 or 3 calls an hour come in, and otherwise that employee can do whatever... watch TV, read a book, work on some other job, play games, whatever. You both agree $2/hour is an acceptable wage. But, with minimum wage laws, you're on the hook for $7.25/hour. You decide that is too expensive, and replace the employee with an answering machine. It's not your wish, after all the answering machine lacks true human feedback. And of course, the potential employee doesn't have any job or income. Sucks all around.
Now let's say we push the burden of guaranteed wage on society instead of the employer. Government writes that employee a check for $72.50 every week (10 hours X $7.25 guaranteed wage). The employee also gets $2/hour from the employer. Society gets what it wants by providing employment opportunities to everyone.
So if we are going to redistribute wealth, let's put that burden directly on society instead of placing it on markets and industries that thrive with unskilled labor.
The only way to increase wealth by reducing the number of jobs is to increase the worth of the remaining jobs or to increase material trade.
Jobs are a form of trade (trading your services for money). Every trade/transaction provides both parties an increase of value or worth; the employer deems the services received to be worth more than the money, and the employee deems the money to be worth more than his or her time. Throw billions or trillions of transactions together, you have an economy.
So reducing the number of jobs (transactions) directly negatively impacts the economy.
Fine, but if the jobs are better and/or material trade increases, doesn't that build wealth?
Even material trades rely on jobs. Every bit of wealth in our economy can be traced back to some physical labor. Gold, oil, food, and all materials are worthless until someone harvests those items. Many items also are refined or otherwise made more valuable by labor, such as sewing cotton to make a shirt. So it all goes back to jobs.
I doubt the loss in number of jobs will be offset by how valuable the remaining jobs are. Even if it is, scarcity will eventually become a factor, as material possessions lose value (due to consumption or depreciation) and only the elite robot owners/operators will have replacement items. Those elites will have all the wealth, and more and more of the remainder of the human population will lose wealth.
So I highly doubt wealth is innately created by destroying jobs, and even if it is, it will only serve to increase the chasm between the rich and the poor.
So, essentially we get $10/month Sprint access (plus Wi-Fi calling if you're into that sort of thing)?
there should be no requirement to drive on said roads other than proof of citizenship
Our society, democratic/republican/whatever, has decided through legal means (enacting and enforcing laws) to place restrictions on the use of public roads. Driver licensing is such an example.
Drivers licenses are unconsitutional
No, you made that up.
no way to opt out if you choose to not use the roads
Not true.
Well, the minute you stole the money from my pocket to build the roads, it became my right to use them.
Again, no.
There's lots of things tax dollars provide that you can't just use any way you want. Society has decided that citizens cannot access restricted government areas that are built with tax dollars. You don't have a right to fly a NASA rocket. You don't have a right to take a soldier's gun and shoot people. You don't have a right to rape a government official.
You do have a right to learn about how society and government work. I encourage doing so, lest you might continue to appear as an idiot.
Agreed, if someone is using some ancient esoteric device, they need to understand that the only free-as-in-beer option is to live with an older kernel.
Now they have plenty of paid options. Get a newer, better supported device (if available). Pay to get new security fixes ported back to the older kernel. Pay to get support for the device in the newer kernel. Or, of course, they could try their hand at making kernel changes.
Keeping a modern platform stuck in the past will suck the life out of it.
Usage of social media is equivalent to unsupervised communication with people outside the prison walls. To my knowledge this has always been a big deal and whatever technology is used shouldn't make much of a difference in punishment. Even seemingly innocent communications can be forms of steganography.
Also, I'm pretty sure inmates who commit murder will be charged with murder.
Another downside, you need to keep that light on all the time (at least when you're using the signal).
It's only false advertising if objective statements are provably false. "Sound is the betterz" is not an objective statement.
But you might be able to win a case if you can show that several run-of-the-mill Ethernet cables produce the same error rate that the $10,000 cable does. Then by showing that the same transmission results in the same audio output, you could then prove that the $10,000 cable provides no sound quality benefits as it claims.
I suspect this cable has at least a tiny advantage in error rate, so it comes down to whether it's worth $9990 to someone for that tiny advantage, which is subjective.
I'm curious if they will offer bundles with Office 365 and Xbox Live Gold. Say at $299/year, you can put Windows on 5 computers, Office on 5 computers, and you get up to 5 Xbox Live Gold accounts.