The E series (6 core, no graphics) tends to trail the regular release by almost a year. The 6-core Haswell chips just came out last September, whereas Haswell launched in the summer of 2013. We probably won't see the first 14 nm 6-core parts until Broadwell comes out. Anyone who's looking to buy high-end Intel CPUs is probably well aware of this.
I think the biggest problem is that a two party system completely dumbs down the whole process of government and removes nuance. If you're pro-gun, you pretty much have to be a Republican and if you're pro-gay, you pretty much have to be a Democrat.
Remove the winner-take-all election contents and rather divide districts such that they elect several representatives from each district. This eventually leads to choices that don't exist along party lines and you can find a candidate that more closely represents your views (e.g., pro-gun, pro-gay, anti-abortion, pro-immigration, etc.) that has a reasonable chance at election.
Any changes that make it more difficult for political parties to operate would go a long way towards improving the country. Politicians would have to start voting their own mind, or better yet talking with their electorate, rather than simply falling into line with the party, and there would be less pandering to small, vocal parties that serve as important parts of the political parties' bases.
Perhaps they're also looking for ways to annoy enough people into quitting so that they don't have the pay out any severance when the next round of layoffs starts. This seems like something that would push a few people over the edge, though I suspect it might be some of their better workers. Then again, the current suit only cares long enough to hit some bonuses based on poorly chosen metrics in order to cash out with a golden parachute while the company collapses.
You can use them for about anything where you need to keep track of some data and a database is overkill. Back in the day, I had a teacher using spreadsheet software for a grade book that could automatically sum the scores and apply a curve instead of having to do it all by hand. My brother would keep track of online auction data in a spreadsheet. I've seen a few people use them to make a quick and easy chore list for their kids. They're also useful for kids who want to make some simple graphs or charts for a school report. There are probably dozens of other ways that people use them on a regular basis that I might never imagine myself.
I don't see how that precludes that average Joe from owning it. It only means that they'll be having it drive for Uber or some similar service while they're at work on not using it. Obviously not everyone will do that or even want to do that, but so long as it makes financial sense to do so, enough people will.
Possibly as soon as you factor in insurance costs. Assuming that autonomous vehicles can live up to some of the hype related to safety, the insurance premiums should be a pittance compared to what many people currently pay. If you have a car that's only likely to be at fault (or better yet, in an accident at all if it can drive defensively well enough) in the event of catastrophic failure, it should cost far less to insure. The initial cost may be higher, but could be amortized over the length of its ownership in lowered insurance premiums.
To some extend that does make it more of a luxury item, but many products start off that way until economics of scale and market competition can drive down the prices. Also it's interesting it that based on insurance costs, the value proposition for an autonomous vehicle improves for people who are the worst drivers. Reducing accidents on their end goes a long way to making the road better for everyone.
For a long time I didn't mind having ads enabled on Slashdot as they tended to behave well, but recently they've been beyond annoying. They make noise and eat inordinate amounts of CPU time for no purpose. When will advertisers realize it's better to make a simple ad that's respectful to the audience than to make one that no one will ever care to look at? I don't doubt that they can get by fine in general when advertising to the unwashed masses, but this is a tech site and the users are no strangers to ad-blocking plug-ins or other means of never viewing their content.
I'd almost immediately consider anyone making a threat on Twitter, Facebook, or other social media site to be among the least credible threats. Anyone stupid enough to blab about those plans in public is too much of an idiot to get anywhere close to successfully accomplishing such a thing.
The more credible threats are the ones posted on message boards or in chat rooms or other small corners of the internet where like-minded folk gather. Most of what you find there will still be people bouncing words and ideas around their little echo chamber, but a few might be crazy enough to try. Even then, I'd be far more concerned with the people who makes threats about shooting up a mall or blowing up a school as that's a far more attainable goal on a much softer target.
Any threat worth devoting resources to stopping is likely to be using encryption or avoiding the internet as much as possible and trying not to draw attention to themselves.
A better system would be to look at the online history and behavior of any individuals who have committed acts of terrorism or engaged is mass shootings or other violence to see if you can identify future cases based on any common behavior. That would be a far better use of resources than keeping tabs on some Jimbo who's always spouting his mouth off about the gov'mint being evil.
I almost believe that Obama wanted them to do so, because it's such a ridiculous complaint that one, immediately lowers the credibility of anyone complaining about it (at least in my eyes), and two, keeps them focused on something ridiculous and harmless rather than find a better avenue of attack.
If I were running for office, I'd probably start some ridiculous rumor about myself that is utterly incredulous in the hopes that my detractors pick up on it and run with it. It's just going to make their side look worse, and the more I ignore or deflect on the matter, the more they'll think they've found something and focus on it, which just makes them seem even more crazy and out of touch.
The most compelling reason to dislike a group often comes from the extreme elements within that group. PETA and Greenpeace didn't become loathed because of attacks from the outside, but rather from the actions of radical members of those groups that are often out of touch with reality. Dump as much fuel on that fire as possible and even the rank-and-file will become alienated with the group.
I'll guess extreme poverty is the reason, but they're not going to be buying the vaccines either, so it seems like we should be spending money on the bed nets as the cost-benefit ratio is going to be better. That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't also do vaccination where possible, but it seems like from an economic point of view, the bed nets are what aid money or humanitarian groups should be focusing on.
Prof Adrian Hill of the Jenner Institute, Oxford, said he was pleased and encouraged by the EMA's decision but added that the vaccine was not a "magic bullet".
He said: "A bed net is more effective than this vaccine, but nonetheless it is a very significant scientific achievement.
While research into a vaccine is great, why haven't we focused efforts on supplying bed nets for everyone? I'm assuming that they'll cost less than the vaccine per unit and they also have the advantage of being reused.
They might disagree but they would do better to shine the light on the government itself more often. In that regard, they may as well change their motto to "In Justice We Trust".
It sounds like they spend hours every day practicing and refining the skills that are important. Just because they're not utilizing the entire body or required to have ridiculous muscle mass to compete does not make it less of a sport.
Both billiards and baton twirling are considered sports, and they're no more physically demanding than gaming, but do require developing and refining skills in order to be competitive. Golf is another perfect example and it's really apt as for most people it is a leisure activity, much as games are.
Video games certainly do put a lot more emphasis on the mental side of the game and many share more in common with something like chess where strategic thinking and planning are highly important, but several also rely on fast reaction time and good hand-eye coordination. If you spend hours every day working to improve those things so that you can perform better in competitions, it's pretty clearly blurring the lines quite a lot. So what's your classification system for what does and does not constitute a sport?
You sound like one of those people, who had they been born 100 years earlier, would be arguing that film is not art.
You could still fit your hand or arm between the two though. Just because it's not possible for your entire body to touch a stove burner doesn't make it less of a safety issue.
I'll assume this technology is generally safe, but that it could interfere with medical devices or the like, which is another form of safety issue even if it's not a big deal for most people.
The primary benefit of settling Mars will be its effects on humanity as a whole. It’s an historic, evolutionary-level venture, which will do much to bring humanity together. There will be a sense of “we achieved something truly great”, which is why I am so strongly I favor of an international mission; so the “we” will not refer to the US or China or whoever, but humanity as a whole.
This is really ignoring how humans function as well as almost all of our history. We might not be killing each other as much, but many groups still do no like the others in the slightest nor show much sign of changing. The only way colonizing Mars achieves peace in the Middle East is if one of the groups leaves Earth.
I've thought the same thing. There shouldn't be a first grade, second grade, etc. but rather several classes that for each topic that a student can progress through individually. Maybe Johnny can't read so good and needs to repeat the first sequence in reading, but is fine in all other aspects or perhaps little Suzy is a math prodigy and can jump ahead a sequence or two but isn't excelling in her other topics so she should just stay put in those.
Such a system sounds far more preferable as it affords students the opportunity to excel in one area while being behind in another without being drug or forced to sit through material that's not at their level. Such a system is going to be more of a logistical problem for teachers and administrators than the current set up, but I think it's a least worth testing out.
Worse still, it's more work that won't improve outcomes as there's a lack of good evidence to support that individualizing learning styles does any good. There are studies that have found negative results.
This is just like the programs to give students a laptop, a tablet, or something else that's supposed to be great for education but won't result in any significant changes. It's made to sound nice and fancy so that schools will spend millions of dollars on it and who would want to question funding something to improve education?
I was a little curious about that as well and one of the linked articles from TFA says that this kid was at MIT at 13. I'll go ahead guess that he's really into and good at microprocessor design. The article I've linked also talks about some of the design decisions for the chip he's making, on which I'd be interested in hearing from someone with a background in the field.
Obviously you can't get it exactly the same unless it were a system where everyone learned via video tutorials prepared in advance. Anyone who's been through any amount of schooling had some teachers that were really great and some that were plain shit.
100% perfect isn't going to exist and realistically if you get to 95% it's likely good enough because the remaining 5% is so expensive that it's no longer feasible to try as there's something else that the money could be better spent on.
The Finnish school system is regularly lauded as one of the best and it's done away with much of the pointless crap that the U.S. system indulges, such as constant standardized testing. Obviously it's not as simple as adopting their system exactly as it is without accounting for cultural, geographical, or other differences that might cause issues or skew the results in their favor, but what we're doing now isn't working.
Also, I realize that not everyone is equal and that you can't realistically give everyone an equal start. As you point out, some parents will devote more resources to their children's success than others. The government can't practically enforce mommy and daddy reading a set amount of time to their children every night nor can it control for individuals who have been more successful passing that on to their children, either genetically or in terms of physical assets.
My argument is that it's better to spend the extra money on improving education and the situations of the least fortunate that it is to jail them or deal with the consequences of having an underclass. A few people can still rise from that, and to some degree that'a s great part of the U.S., but most will just be a net drain on society when there's an opportunity for them to be valuable contributors. Just because it's impossible to get everyone to be a net positive, doesn't mean that there isn't a point along the cost-benefit scale where investing more into education and the poor doesn't yield a better outcome for the country as a whole.
Perhaps it's been going on for a lot longer than I would have realized, but I don't think it was always that way. Watch the trailer for something like Alien and tell me that it gives anything about the movie away other than it's set in space and is probably going to be kind of creepy.
Then again, there are examples (NSFW) that prove your point.
The government has no real interest in legislating for privacy because even if they stopped snooping on everyone (which they shouldn't be doing to start with, even though that hasn't stopped them) it would simply be a matter of filing legal paperwork to get any information that they wanted from the corporations who are collecting and storing that data for their own reasons.
If the FCC tried to do this of their own initiative, Congress would shut them down for "overstepping their bounds".
Knowledge is power, especially knowledge of a person's secrets.
I think that the entertainment industry has found out that people don't care about spoilers or that spoiling just enough will actually drive viewership. The Simpsons has become pretty notorious for making advanced announcements of exactly what's going to happen and movie trailers have been giving away practically everything for a while now, but it doesn't seem to have hurt business. I've heard some people suggest that trailers that essentially give away the entire movie are more effective at attracting viewers than those which merely introduce the movie in a more broad manner, but I haven't read any studies to suggest that one approach is more effective than the other, but if it were detrimental to business I have a hard time believing that so many studios would be doing it.
The only way you can design a system of metrics that is difficult to game is to base it around some kind of economy-like system whereby participants have to bid or buy such that value can be honestly established. No surgeon wants to operate on a patient that they think is unlikely to survive, but someone still has to do that. If there are fewer surgeons who believe that the outcome is success, then having a successful outcome with that patient should be viewed more favorably than a successful outcome with a patient that everyone felt that they could have achieved a similar outcome with.
If you have a patient that only five surgeons in the world are capable of operating on successfully, then they should be the ones doing that operation and should be recognized for that fact. Not everyone needs to be the premiere expert in their field and it's better if the milk runs can be handled by the average Joe or Jane so that the top dogs can tackle the tricky cases instead of them being handed over to whatever poor bastard is stuck holding the short straw or can take the hit to their numbers.
The only way you can make a metric that can't be gamed is to make a metric that responds to any attempts to game it, but perhaps I've missed an obvious, less-complex alternative, so if anyone has something that they think would work well I'm interested.
While it's impractical to build a system of government that redistributes wealth constantly so that everyone has the same amount, there is something to be said for creating a system that ensures everyone, no matter how rich or poor, the same quality of education, medical care, and other opportunities in early life so that they can become the best person that they possibly can. There comes a certain point where a person has to become responsible for their own self and situation in life, but it's a lot more difficult to blame someone for being a homeless drug addict when they grew up in a broken home and what little education they received was in a defective school system.
Give everyone a good opportunity to be successful, and even though many will fall short, society will likely be better off collectively. When you look at the amount of money that it takes to imprison one individual per year or deal with the other societal consequences (burglary, etc.) that must be handled, it seems a lot more worthwhile to invest in solving those issues before they become expensive problems, especially when you consider the potential value that everyone committing crime and floating through life in some kind of drug induced haze could be adding to society instead.
Some people are going to do better in life than others. That can't be helped and trying to stop it is even worse. However, what can be done is to ensure that everyone has a reasonably good chance to make something of themselves. While it's still possible to go from rags to riches in the U.S., it's certainly the exception and we could be doing a lot better as a society to move towards that point.
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The E series (6 core, no graphics) tends to trail the regular release by almost a year. The 6-core Haswell chips just came out last September, whereas Haswell launched in the summer of 2013. We probably won't see the first 14 nm 6-core parts until Broadwell comes out. Anyone who's looking to buy high-end Intel CPUs is probably well aware of this.
I think the biggest problem is that a two party system completely dumbs down the whole process of government and removes nuance. If you're pro-gun, you pretty much have to be a Republican and if you're pro-gay, you pretty much have to be a Democrat.
Remove the winner-take-all election contents and rather divide districts such that they elect several representatives from each district. This eventually leads to choices that don't exist along party lines and you can find a candidate that more closely represents your views (e.g., pro-gun, pro-gay, anti-abortion, pro-immigration, etc.) that has a reasonable chance at election.
Any changes that make it more difficult for political parties to operate would go a long way towards improving the country. Politicians would have to start voting their own mind, or better yet talking with their electorate, rather than simply falling into line with the party, and there would be less pandering to small, vocal parties that serve as important parts of the political parties' bases.
Perhaps they're also looking for ways to annoy enough people into quitting so that they don't have the pay out any severance when the next round of layoffs starts. This seems like something that would push a few people over the edge, though I suspect it might be some of their better workers. Then again, the current suit only cares long enough to hit some bonuses based on poorly chosen metrics in order to cash out with a golden parachute while the company collapses.
You can use them for about anything where you need to keep track of some data and a database is overkill. Back in the day, I had a teacher using spreadsheet software for a grade book that could automatically sum the scores and apply a curve instead of having to do it all by hand. My brother would keep track of online auction data in a spreadsheet. I've seen a few people use them to make a quick and easy chore list for their kids. They're also useful for kids who want to make some simple graphs or charts for a school report. There are probably dozens of other ways that people use them on a regular basis that I might never imagine myself.
I don't see how that precludes that average Joe from owning it. It only means that they'll be having it drive for Uber or some similar service while they're at work on not using it. Obviously not everyone will do that or even want to do that, but so long as it makes financial sense to do so, enough people will.
Possibly as soon as you factor in insurance costs. Assuming that autonomous vehicles can live up to some of the hype related to safety, the insurance premiums should be a pittance compared to what many people currently pay. If you have a car that's only likely to be at fault (or better yet, in an accident at all if it can drive defensively well enough) in the event of catastrophic failure, it should cost far less to insure. The initial cost may be higher, but could be amortized over the length of its ownership in lowered insurance premiums.
To some extend that does make it more of a luxury item, but many products start off that way until economics of scale and market competition can drive down the prices. Also it's interesting it that based on insurance costs, the value proposition for an autonomous vehicle improves for people who are the worst drivers. Reducing accidents on their end goes a long way to making the road better for everyone.
For a long time I didn't mind having ads enabled on Slashdot as they tended to behave well, but recently they've been beyond annoying. They make noise and eat inordinate amounts of CPU time for no purpose. When will advertisers realize it's better to make a simple ad that's respectful to the audience than to make one that no one will ever care to look at? I don't doubt that they can get by fine in general when advertising to the unwashed masses, but this is a tech site and the users are no strangers to ad-blocking plug-ins or other means of never viewing their content.
I'd almost immediately consider anyone making a threat on Twitter, Facebook, or other social media site to be among the least credible threats. Anyone stupid enough to blab about those plans in public is too much of an idiot to get anywhere close to successfully accomplishing such a thing.
The more credible threats are the ones posted on message boards or in chat rooms or other small corners of the internet where like-minded folk gather. Most of what you find there will still be people bouncing words and ideas around their little echo chamber, but a few might be crazy enough to try. Even then, I'd be far more concerned with the people who makes threats about shooting up a mall or blowing up a school as that's a far more attainable goal on a much softer target.
Any threat worth devoting resources to stopping is likely to be using encryption or avoiding the internet as much as possible and trying not to draw attention to themselves.
A better system would be to look at the online history and behavior of any individuals who have committed acts of terrorism or engaged is mass shootings or other violence to see if you can identify future cases based on any common behavior. That would be a far better use of resources than keeping tabs on some Jimbo who's always spouting his mouth off about the gov'mint being evil.
I almost believe that Obama wanted them to do so, because it's such a ridiculous complaint that one, immediately lowers the credibility of anyone complaining about it (at least in my eyes), and two, keeps them focused on something ridiculous and harmless rather than find a better avenue of attack.
If I were running for office, I'd probably start some ridiculous rumor about myself that is utterly incredulous in the hopes that my detractors pick up on it and run with it. It's just going to make their side look worse, and the more I ignore or deflect on the matter, the more they'll think they've found something and focus on it, which just makes them seem even more crazy and out of touch.
The most compelling reason to dislike a group often comes from the extreme elements within that group. PETA and Greenpeace didn't become loathed because of attacks from the outside, but rather from the actions of radical members of those groups that are often out of touch with reality. Dump as much fuel on that fire as possible and even the rank-and-file will become alienated with the group.
Why aren't the locals buying bed nets themselves?
I'll guess extreme poverty is the reason, but they're not going to be buying the vaccines either, so it seems like we should be spending money on the bed nets as the cost-benefit ratio is going to be better. That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't also do vaccination where possible, but it seems like from an economic point of view, the bed nets are what aid money or humanitarian groups should be focusing on.
Prof Adrian Hill of the Jenner Institute, Oxford, said he was pleased and encouraged by the EMA's decision but added that the vaccine was not a "magic bullet".
He said: "A bed net is more effective than this vaccine, but nonetheless it is a very significant scientific achievement.
While research into a vaccine is great, why haven't we focused efforts on supplying bed nets for everyone? I'm assuming that they'll cost less than the vaccine per unit and they also have the advantage of being reused.
They might disagree but they would do better to shine the light on the government itself more often. In that regard, they may as well change their motto to "In Justice We Trust".
It sounds like they spend hours every day practicing and refining the skills that are important. Just because they're not utilizing the entire body or required to have ridiculous muscle mass to compete does not make it less of a sport.
Both billiards and baton twirling are considered sports, and they're no more physically demanding than gaming, but do require developing and refining skills in order to be competitive. Golf is another perfect example and it's really apt as for most people it is a leisure activity, much as games are.
Video games certainly do put a lot more emphasis on the mental side of the game and many share more in common with something like chess where strategic thinking and planning are highly important, but several also rely on fast reaction time and good hand-eye coordination. If you spend hours every day working to improve those things so that you can perform better in competitions, it's pretty clearly blurring the lines quite a lot. So what's your classification system for what does and does not constitute a sport?
You sound like one of those people, who had they been born 100 years earlier, would be arguing that film is not art.
You could still fit your hand or arm between the two though. Just because it's not possible for your entire body to touch a stove burner doesn't make it less of a safety issue.
I'll assume this technology is generally safe, but that it could interfere with medical devices or the like, which is another form of safety issue even if it's not a big deal for most people.
The primary benefit of settling Mars will be its effects on humanity as a whole. It’s an historic, evolutionary-level venture, which will do much to bring humanity together. There will be a sense of “we achieved something truly great”, which is why I am so strongly I favor of an international mission; so the “we” will not refer to the US or China or whoever, but humanity as a whole.
This is really ignoring how humans function as well as almost all of our history. We might not be killing each other as much, but many groups still do no like the others in the slightest nor show much sign of changing. The only way colonizing Mars achieves peace in the Middle East is if one of the groups leaves Earth.
I've thought the same thing. There shouldn't be a first grade, second grade, etc. but rather several classes that for each topic that a student can progress through individually. Maybe Johnny can't read so good and needs to repeat the first sequence in reading, but is fine in all other aspects or perhaps little Suzy is a math prodigy and can jump ahead a sequence or two but isn't excelling in her other topics so she should just stay put in those.
Such a system sounds far more preferable as it affords students the opportunity to excel in one area while being behind in another without being drug or forced to sit through material that's not at their level. Such a system is going to be more of a logistical problem for teachers and administrators than the current set up, but I think it's a least worth testing out.
Worse still, it's more work that won't improve outcomes as there's a lack of good evidence to support that individualizing learning styles does any good. There are studies that have found negative results.
This is just like the programs to give students a laptop, a tablet, or something else that's supposed to be great for education but won't result in any significant changes. It's made to sound nice and fancy so that schools will spend millions of dollars on it and who would want to question funding something to improve education?
I was a little curious about that as well and one of the linked articles from TFA says that this kid was at MIT at 13. I'll go ahead guess that he's really into and good at microprocessor design. The article I've linked also talks about some of the design decisions for the chip he's making, on which I'd be interested in hearing from someone with a background in the field.
You're probably thinking of Instragram. Facebook is the thing where people send out short-length messages to the rest of the world.
Obviously you can't get it exactly the same unless it were a system where everyone learned via video tutorials prepared in advance. Anyone who's been through any amount of schooling had some teachers that were really great and some that were plain shit.
100% perfect isn't going to exist and realistically if you get to 95% it's likely good enough because the remaining 5% is so expensive that it's no longer feasible to try as there's something else that the money could be better spent on.
The Finnish school system is regularly lauded as one of the best and it's done away with much of the pointless crap that the U.S. system indulges, such as constant standardized testing. Obviously it's not as simple as adopting their system exactly as it is without accounting for cultural, geographical, or other differences that might cause issues or skew the results in their favor, but what we're doing now isn't working.
Also, I realize that not everyone is equal and that you can't realistically give everyone an equal start. As you point out, some parents will devote more resources to their children's success than others. The government can't practically enforce mommy and daddy reading a set amount of time to their children every night nor can it control for individuals who have been more successful passing that on to their children, either genetically or in terms of physical assets.
My argument is that it's better to spend the extra money on improving education and the situations of the least fortunate that it is to jail them or deal with the consequences of having an underclass. A few people can still rise from that, and to some degree that'a s great part of the U.S., but most will just be a net drain on society when there's an opportunity for them to be valuable contributors. Just because it's impossible to get everyone to be a net positive, doesn't mean that there isn't a point along the cost-benefit scale where investing more into education and the poor doesn't yield a better outcome for the country as a whole.
Perhaps it's been going on for a lot longer than I would have realized, but I don't think it was always that way. Watch the trailer for something like Alien and tell me that it gives anything about the movie away other than it's set in space and is probably going to be kind of creepy.
Then again, there are examples (NSFW) that prove your point.
The government has no real interest in legislating for privacy because even if they stopped snooping on everyone (which they shouldn't be doing to start with, even though that hasn't stopped them) it would simply be a matter of filing legal paperwork to get any information that they wanted from the corporations who are collecting and storing that data for their own reasons.
If the FCC tried to do this of their own initiative, Congress would shut them down for "overstepping their bounds".
Knowledge is power, especially knowledge of a person's secrets.
I think that the entertainment industry has found out that people don't care about spoilers or that spoiling just enough will actually drive viewership. The Simpsons has become pretty notorious for making advanced announcements of exactly what's going to happen and movie trailers have been giving away practically everything for a while now, but it doesn't seem to have hurt business. I've heard some people suggest that trailers that essentially give away the entire movie are more effective at attracting viewers than those which merely introduce the movie in a more broad manner, but I haven't read any studies to suggest that one approach is more effective than the other, but if it were detrimental to business I have a hard time believing that so many studios would be doing it.
The only way you can design a system of metrics that is difficult to game is to base it around some kind of economy-like system whereby participants have to bid or buy such that value can be honestly established. No surgeon wants to operate on a patient that they think is unlikely to survive, but someone still has to do that. If there are fewer surgeons who believe that the outcome is success, then having a successful outcome with that patient should be viewed more favorably than a successful outcome with a patient that everyone felt that they could have achieved a similar outcome with.
If you have a patient that only five surgeons in the world are capable of operating on successfully, then they should be the ones doing that operation and should be recognized for that fact. Not everyone needs to be the premiere expert in their field and it's better if the milk runs can be handled by the average Joe or Jane so that the top dogs can tackle the tricky cases instead of them being handed over to whatever poor bastard is stuck holding the short straw or can take the hit to their numbers.
The only way you can make a metric that can't be gamed is to make a metric that responds to any attempts to game it, but perhaps I've missed an obvious, less-complex alternative, so if anyone has something that they think would work well I'm interested.
While it's impractical to build a system of government that redistributes wealth constantly so that everyone has the same amount, there is something to be said for creating a system that ensures everyone, no matter how rich or poor, the same quality of education, medical care, and other opportunities in early life so that they can become the best person that they possibly can. There comes a certain point where a person has to become responsible for their own self and situation in life, but it's a lot more difficult to blame someone for being a homeless drug addict when they grew up in a broken home and what little education they received was in a defective school system.
Give everyone a good opportunity to be successful, and even though many will fall short, society will likely be better off collectively. When you look at the amount of money that it takes to imprison one individual per year or deal with the other societal consequences (burglary, etc.) that must be handled, it seems a lot more worthwhile to invest in solving those issues before they become expensive problems, especially when you consider the potential value that everyone committing crime and floating through life in some kind of drug induced haze could be adding to society instead.
Some people are going to do better in life than others. That can't be helped and trying to stop it is even worse. However, what can be done is to ensure that everyone has a reasonably good chance to make something of themselves. While it's still possible to go from rags to riches in the U.S., it's certainly the exception and we could be doing a lot better as a society to move towards that point.