[Smartphones] 'seems to possess all the criteria required for free will, and behaves as if it has it.'
It doesn't have "free" will. It's actually the will of the application developers imposed upon your device. But you let them when you installed their app, so it's ok.
I'm not sure physicists are the best people to decide what has free will or not (or even exhibits the behavior of having free will). Free will involves not just having choices, but making the choice based on a difference in the weighing of various factors. Choosing at random is not free will, though choosing to choose at random is. Assigning a random weight to each factor is also not free will, as the factors are assigned.
Free will is a meta-epistemological concept. It doesn't deal with our knowledge, but deals with how we deal with our knowledge. In fact, people (namely myself and certain other schools of thought) aren't even sure humans have real free will. What we have is probably closer to pseudo-free will. The weights I mentioned above are pre-determined by our genetics, and shift as we gain experience.
If we don't have free will, how can we determine if something else has it or not? Hell, how can we even define it properly? For all we know, our definition is, and any attempt at it will be, flawed (like the rest of us).
Surface vs. MBA is still a largely meaningless comparison. To know if there's a real difference, you need to compare Win8 and OSX on the same machine. But this has been brought up before, though not in the context of Win8 and tablets. It's fairly certain that Windows is chewing up a lot of power doing something even on low-power chips, though what nobody seems to know.
Because it wasn't designed with power management in mind. Duh. The engineers who wrote some of the subsystems probably took shortcuts that they knew would suck up power (indefinite loops or some such) but were easy to implement. It is a desktop OS.
BSD, on the other hand, was built with embedded systems in mind. So they optimized and managed the power consumption of their components wisely. Desktop Linux, I hear, is pretty rough on power too, but not as bad as Windows.
How can they fix this? Well, there are two options: 1) Dig deep and hope your fix doesn't break something. 2) Re-engineer from scratch. Note I didn't say "rewrite." Oftimes, power issues are built into the protocol, not on purpose, but the only way to implement the protocol without a lot of black magic is to suck up power. The protocols themselves probably would need to be redone, optimized.
Just a quick example of power management and the lack of thought around it: processing SGML generally requires more power than processing JSON. The difference is negligible for most use cases, but it adds up over many systems and over a long time. Binary formats are probably the best power-wise, but they're also the least interoperable.
Technically, there is a redundancy in the jobs of the train operator and the conductor. The operator can manage the doors just as capably as the conductor, especially when the station has a CCTV to monitor each car from the outside. In fact, the operator often helps out during rush hour.
The conductor, however, has two much more subtle roles:
1) The conductor manages the train while it's operating. The train operator can make announcements and fiddle with other things while the train is stopped at a station. the train operator should not be making announcements while simultaneously operating the train. Nor should the train operator be fooling around with the automated announcements or whatnot. You would want your train operator to be focused on operating the train too, no?
2) The conductor handles queries from passengers. The conductor is the public-facing individual of the train crew. The conductor handles everything from puzzled tourists (which there are a lot of) to sick passengers to any crime (for which they can only radio in). While the operator can do this duty too, the operator sits at the front of the train, which is fairly difficult to reach from the other end. Yes, the back of the train has significantly degraded service even with two crew members, but it's not as bad as having to run to the front for anything.
You can argue to remove the operator for automated trains (CBTB). There are downsides to this too, but not nearly as much as the conductor.
You claimed to have lived here for 5 years, but it's obvious your knowledge of the subway system is superficial. Basically, more than a tourist, less than a local (not a native, just a local), i.e. in that gray area where you're competent enough to do something but not enough to know what it is you're doing. I say you probably haven't ridden in more than five lines in the entire time you're here, one of which is your commute, and none of it involves waiting for a train in Midtown during rush hour. If you actually were familiar with the subway system, you'd know that the conductor is the one position that's not expendable, and that platform doors are not possible in most if not all of the system.
Yes. So figure out how to fix it or keep it to yourself. You run yours your way, and we'll run ours our way.
There are many problems with the NYC subway. Most of them have to do with expansion planning, particularly the politics and red tape around it. A lot of it stems from historical decisions, different ideas of what things should be or where they should be going. Some of the issues came about because of something unrelated to the subway system itself. You'd probably find it easier to solve things like world hunger and the unrest in the Middle East than fixing even one issue.
Have you studied the NYC subway system at all? Platform doors only work if there's one train of one type running on that line. NYC subway doesn't just have multiple lines all running on the same ROW, there are something like up to five different models of rolling stock running on each system that can and often do run on that particular track. The oldest cars dates from the 70's. And in case you didn't know, the doors do not line up between train models. Hell, some configurations run 11 cars while others run 10. And we're still talking about the same line here.
Yes, when there are no seats, the preferred places on the train are against a side somewhere. Doors, walls, joints, etc. The idea is to get out of the way. Without walls, the doors are the next best place.
In NYC, you'd also get the smells of the homeless people in addition to sweat, vomit, piss, smells of the sewage outside, and whatnot. Those are always fun to ride in, especially in the summertime.
This is true, but not the case for all lines in NYC. A good chunk of the lines are operating under capacity, especially in the outer boroughs. The 6 is maybe the only one that's operating at capacity. The 7 is also at capacity but only if you consider the express and local together. It's limitation is actually the shitty 2-track situation at Times Square which hopefully will be fixed with the new Javits station (and more tracks means more capacity too).
Everything else is operating under capacity due to service cuts over the past five years. But there are also insertion issues when talking about capacity, and if you take those into account, then it gets a bit more complicated than just adding an extra train between 9:30 and 9:35 or something.
You bring up a good point about articulated cars being able to extend beyond the platform. This can only work with changes to the signals system, which currently handle only a certain length or less of train. Safe stopping distance and operating speeds and all that.
They have this in NYC in rush hour too, again at busier stations (which are basically all of the 4-track, express stations). But try doing this on the 4/5/6 at Union Sq. and you'll have another thing coming. Just to give you a picture, the station's curve is so sharp that there are extending floors along certain points of the platform that roll out to meet the train after it's stopped, and then roll back before the train can leave.
Oh, and if you do something for one line, you have to do it for every other line, because every line runs on the same ROW as at least one other line for some time, and then may split and possibly meet yet another line. Only the 7 is not connected to the rest of the system in this manner (there is one crossover that can only ever be used for maintenance purposes), and the L has the next fewest such points. This is primarily why experimental things are done on the L first (the 7 is elevated and has this complex express-local switching BS while the L is straightforward).
Is it? Is it a solved problem like, a human is a part of the solution, or is there some magical device that can determine your backpack straps (with the little notch at the end) haven't been caught in the doorway on your way out?
As recently as last year, I've seen video footage of people getting dragged by trains (in other systems, not NYC). You really think it would work on a system as busy as NYC? This is the system where some stations are so packed during rush hour that there are people standing from the wall to where their toes are at the edge of the platform. Imagine one person dragging all those other people...
In fact, during rush hour, there's additional transit workers standing at either end of the platforms just to make sure everybody's all the way in and no straps are hanging loosely out.
It's also one of the few systems in the world that run 24/7. Almost every other system shuts down after a certain time each day for maintenance, cleaning, repairs, etc. This includes pretty much every system in Asia. The NYCTA has no such luxury.
The stations also weren't built to handle this kind of density. Early on, subway riding was considered a luxury, and the expectation was only the upper-middle class and above would really use it. So stations were built relatively small. In fact, they started off as 4-5 car stations, and only expanded to 8-10 cars afterwards. Certain stations, like the South Ferry loop, still only support 5 cars.
There are also three separate train systems at work, and the differences in engineering philosophy employed between the three are very, very obvious. Putting them together was a nightmare, and in certain spots of the system, still is.
You'll get a ticket if you're caught going between cars. And depending on the train type, they can be locked.
It's also quite unsafe. The subway is not a smooth ride and the gap is fairly large. If you don't know what to expect when, one misstep and you'll be less a leg or more.
Sorry, you don't know how credit bureaus work. First, they gather as much data as possible on everyone and everything. Then, they tell everyone they have data on everyone, and that they're a one-stop-shop for information of anything and everything. Then they blackmail you by threatening to put negative information on you into their profile (downgrade, lower credit score, etc.).
Those are credit rating bureaus. That's how the system works. Why it came about is an entirely different story, but is closely tied to the fact that banks can hold entire countries ransom. The system that gives banks this power also gives the other the same power, but over individual entities.
All this, and the big question still goes unanswered: Why is he getting targetted for plus-sized women's clothing? I mean, the behaviorial information causing him to be an ideal candidate for purchasing plus-sized women's clothing is coming from somewhere, no?
They have to, how else could they send the picture to the recipient?
Push. It doesn't always work. If a device is powered off, then push fails. But for security purposes where the data is being stored on the server, push is superior to pull. P2P is probably ideal. Cut out the middleman. Send directly via an encrypted channel.
It doesn't really matter though. If the courts mandate Snapchat give up their encryption keys (like LavaBit), the only thing that could possibly stand between the data and a LE agent would be client-side encryption.
Can't. The weakest link exists between keyboard and chair.
If Firefox,Chrome,Opera, IE, etc. all came with TOR bridging and surfing enabled right out of the box, that might reduce the NSA's ability to construct such dragnets. But it won't really be more than a minor hindrance for specific targets.
Slashdot Mirror
[Smartphones] 'seems to possess all the criteria required for free will, and behaves as if it has it.'
It doesn't have "free" will. It's actually the will of the application developers imposed upon your device. But you let them when you installed their app, so it's ok.
I'm not sure physicists are the best people to decide what has free will or not (or even exhibits the behavior of having free will). Free will involves not just having choices, but making the choice based on a difference in the weighing of various factors. Choosing at random is not free will, though choosing to choose at random is. Assigning a random weight to each factor is also not free will, as the factors are assigned.
Free will is a meta-epistemological concept. It doesn't deal with our knowledge, but deals with how we deal with our knowledge. In fact, people (namely myself and certain other schools of thought) aren't even sure humans have real free will. What we have is probably closer to pseudo-free will. The weights I mentioned above are pre-determined by our genetics, and shift as we gain experience.
If we don't have free will, how can we determine if something else has it or not? Hell, how can we even define it properly? For all we know, our definition is, and any attempt at it will be, flawed (like the rest of us).
Surface vs. MBA is still a largely meaningless comparison. To know if there's a real difference, you need to compare Win8 and OSX on the same machine. But this has been brought up before, though not in the context of Win8 and tablets. It's fairly certain that Windows is chewing up a lot of power doing something even on low-power chips, though what nobody seems to know.
Because it wasn't designed with power management in mind. Duh. The engineers who wrote some of the subsystems probably took shortcuts that they knew would suck up power (indefinite loops or some such) but were easy to implement. It is a desktop OS.
BSD, on the other hand, was built with embedded systems in mind. So they optimized and managed the power consumption of their components wisely. Desktop Linux, I hear, is pretty rough on power too, but not as bad as Windows.
How can they fix this? Well, there are two options: 1) Dig deep and hope your fix doesn't break something. 2) Re-engineer from scratch. Note I didn't say "rewrite." Oftimes, power issues are built into the protocol, not on purpose, but the only way to implement the protocol without a lot of black magic is to suck up power. The protocols themselves probably would need to be redone, optimized.
Just a quick example of power management and the lack of thought around it: processing SGML generally requires more power than processing JSON. The difference is negligible for most use cases, but it adds up over many systems and over a long time. Binary formats are probably the best power-wise, but they're also the least interoperable.
Technically, there is a redundancy in the jobs of the train operator and the conductor. The operator can manage the doors just as capably as the conductor, especially when the station has a CCTV to monitor each car from the outside. In fact, the operator often helps out during rush hour.
The conductor, however, has two much more subtle roles:
1) The conductor manages the train while it's operating. The train operator can make announcements and fiddle with other things while the train is stopped at a station. the train operator should not be making announcements while simultaneously operating the train. Nor should the train operator be fooling around with the automated announcements or whatnot. You would want your train operator to be focused on operating the train too, no?
2) The conductor handles queries from passengers. The conductor is the public-facing individual of the train crew. The conductor handles everything from puzzled tourists (which there are a lot of) to sick passengers to any crime (for which they can only radio in). While the operator can do this duty too, the operator sits at the front of the train, which is fairly difficult to reach from the other end. Yes, the back of the train has significantly degraded service even with two crew members, but it's not as bad as having to run to the front for anything.
You can argue to remove the operator for automated trains (CBTB). There are downsides to this too, but not nearly as much as the conductor.
You claimed to have lived here for 5 years, but it's obvious your knowledge of the subway system is superficial. Basically, more than a tourist, less than a local (not a native, just a local), i.e. in that gray area where you're competent enough to do something but not enough to know what it is you're doing. I say you probably haven't ridden in more than five lines in the entire time you're here, one of which is your commute, and none of it involves waiting for a train in Midtown during rush hour. If you actually were familiar with the subway system, you'd know that the conductor is the one position that's not expendable, and that platform doors are not possible in most if not all of the system.
NYC had a big surplus of low-cost, zero-carbon energy sources
Um, NYC is primarily powered by the Niagra Falls.
Yes. So figure out how to fix it or keep it to yourself. You run yours your way, and we'll run ours our way.
There are many problems with the NYC subway. Most of them have to do with expansion planning, particularly the politics and red tape around it. A lot of it stems from historical decisions, different ideas of what things should be or where they should be going. Some of the issues came about because of something unrelated to the subway system itself. You'd probably find it easier to solve things like world hunger and the unrest in the Middle East than fixing even one issue.
Have you studied the NYC subway system at all? Platform doors only work if there's one train of one type running on that line. NYC subway doesn't just have multiple lines all running on the same ROW, there are something like up to five different models of rolling stock running on each system that can and often do run on that particular track. The oldest cars dates from the 70's. And in case you didn't know, the doors do not line up between train models. Hell, some configurations run 11 cars while others run 10. And we're still talking about the same line here.
Yes, when there are no seats, the preferred places on the train are against a side somewhere. Doors, walls, joints, etc. The idea is to get out of the way. Without walls, the doors are the next best place.
In NYC, you'd also get the smells of the homeless people in addition to sweat, vomit, piss, smells of the sewage outside, and whatnot. Those are always fun to ride in, especially in the summertime.
This is true, but not the case for all lines in NYC. A good chunk of the lines are operating under capacity, especially in the outer boroughs. The 6 is maybe the only one that's operating at capacity. The 7 is also at capacity but only if you consider the express and local together. It's limitation is actually the shitty 2-track situation at Times Square which hopefully will be fixed with the new Javits station (and more tracks means more capacity too).
Everything else is operating under capacity due to service cuts over the past five years. But there are also insertion issues when talking about capacity, and if you take those into account, then it gets a bit more complicated than just adding an extra train between 9:30 and 9:35 or something.
You bring up a good point about articulated cars being able to extend beyond the platform. This can only work with changes to the signals system, which currently handle only a certain length or less of train. Safe stopping distance and operating speeds and all that.
They have this in NYC in rush hour too, again at busier stations (which are basically all of the 4-track, express stations). But try doing this on the 4/5/6 at Union Sq. and you'll have another thing coming. Just to give you a picture, the station's curve is so sharp that there are extending floors along certain points of the platform that roll out to meet the train after it's stopped, and then roll back before the train can leave.
Oh, and if you do something for one line, you have to do it for every other line, because every line runs on the same ROW as at least one other line for some time, and then may split and possibly meet yet another line. Only the 7 is not connected to the rest of the system in this manner (there is one crossover that can only ever be used for maintenance purposes), and the L has the next fewest such points. This is primarily why experimental things are done on the L first (the 7 is elevated and has this complex express-local switching BS while the L is straightforward).
This is a solved problem.
Is it? Is it a solved problem like, a human is a part of the solution, or is there some magical device that can determine your backpack straps (with the little notch at the end) haven't been caught in the doorway on your way out?
As recently as last year, I've seen video footage of people getting dragged by trains (in other systems, not NYC). You really think it would work on a system as busy as NYC? This is the system where some stations are so packed during rush hour that there are people standing from the wall to where their toes are at the edge of the platform. Imagine one person dragging all those other people...
In fact, during rush hour, there's additional transit workers standing at either end of the platforms just to make sure everybody's all the way in and no straps are hanging loosely out.
It's also one of the few systems in the world that run 24/7. Almost every other system shuts down after a certain time each day for maintenance, cleaning, repairs, etc. This includes pretty much every system in Asia. The NYCTA has no such luxury.
The stations also weren't built to handle this kind of density. Early on, subway riding was considered a luxury, and the expectation was only the upper-middle class and above would really use it. So stations were built relatively small. In fact, they started off as 4-5 car stations, and only expanded to 8-10 cars afterwards. Certain stations, like the South Ferry loop, still only support 5 cars.
There are also three separate train systems at work, and the differences in engineering philosophy employed between the three are very, very obvious. Putting them together was a nightmare, and in certain spots of the system, still is.
You'll get a ticket if you're caught going between cars. And depending on the train type, they can be locked.
It's also quite unsafe. The subway is not a smooth ride and the gap is fairly large. If you don't know what to expect when, one misstep and you'll be less a leg or more.
Sorry, you don't know how credit bureaus work. First, they gather as much data as possible on everyone and everything. Then, they tell everyone they have data on everyone, and that they're a one-stop-shop for information of anything and everything. Then they blackmail you by threatening to put negative information on you into their profile (downgrade, lower credit score, etc.).
Those are credit rating bureaus. That's how the system works. Why it came about is an entirely different story, but is closely tied to the fact that banks can hold entire countries ransom. The system that gives banks this power also gives the other the same power, but over individual entities.
All this, and the big question still goes unanswered: Why is he getting targetted for plus-sized women's clothing? I mean, the behaviorial information causing him to be an ideal candidate for purchasing plus-sized women's clothing is coming from somewhere, no?
In Facist America...
Chuck Norris > 1 CN only when he wants to be.
No, it's worse at TEPCO. It's not a lack of enforcement that's problematic, but a cover-up at every level of the lack of enforcement.
As an aside, NYC is primarily powered by the Niagra Falls, not by dead animals or radiation.
No, it is just 1984 happening right before your eyes.
They have to, how else could they send the picture to the recipient?
Push. It doesn't always work. If a device is powered off, then push fails. But for security purposes where the data is being stored on the server, push is superior to pull. P2P is probably ideal. Cut out the middleman. Send directly via an encrypted channel.
It doesn't really matter though. If the courts mandate Snapchat give up their encryption keys (like LavaBit), the only thing that could possibly stand between the data and a LE agent would be client-side encryption.
Can't. The weakest link exists between keyboard and chair.
If Firefox,Chrome,Opera, IE, etc. all came with TOR bridging and surfing enabled right out of the box, that might reduce the NSA's ability to construct such dragnets. But it won't really be more than a minor hindrance for specific targets.
From the link:
If you live in and work from your home (e.g. accountant, graphic designer, online tutor, talent agent for clowns)
I didn't know MPAA execs had talent agents.
I'd like to see the face of the analyst in charge of your file after they intercept this.