In some places knowing that someone is in a house will encourage a break-and-entry.
Why? Because an inhabited house means there will be the person's wallet, possibly ID or passport, car keys and phone - and someone to tell the combination of a safe, if there is one.
Making believe there is someone there could increase burglaries.A better solution would be a convincingly large dog or two - or at least a good facsimile of one (rather than some of the pathetic commercial offerings). Add to the effect by leaving a dogfood bowl out front and maybe a Beware of the Dog sign (next to the NRA membership sticker!)
going to the sauna at least four times a week was associated with a roughly 50 percent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease or coronary heart disease.
However, those sauna-goers still must die from some cause or other. It would be helpful to know whether not croaking from a heart attack just laid them open to dying from something worse, more painful or lingering just a little further down the line.
UBI is about eliminating the need to work to meet your basic needs. If you want more than the basics, you're going to have to work.
You are thinking too short-term.
Sure, for a person who got replaced by a machine - they could probably provide a useful job-function. At least until they are too old to work, or lose their skills, or find that their skills are now obsolete (taxi driver in the world of AVs, for example).
But fast-forward 20 years to the next generation. What would they have learned that made them employable? Would they even have the notion of work, reward. Jump to the next generation after (say) 50 years of UBI. They would accept the "basic" living they and their parents had ever known to be all there was, all there could ever be. Not only would those people be completely unemployable, but there is no guarantee that the state - or anyone else - would even have bothered to educate them. What would be the point?
That is the danger behind UBI. Not how people are a year or two into the prograame. But how completely dependent they would become after a generation or two.
That is a mark in favour of a universal basic income: being unconditional, it is likely to enhance our feelings of control.
Nothing the government gives you is truly yours. They can withdraw your benefits, if enough people vote for that to happen. For example, to cut their taxes or to divert the money to themselves.
Whereas a job that is based on actually providing a necessary or useful service, does provide security. Since the function the employee performs truly is needed. This doesn't hold for most office jobs, for example, as most of them create no value and fulfill no function except empire-building.
The big problem is to identify job functions that really are necessary. While it could be possible to automate them away, if a society is wealthy enough (through automation) there would be little need to save the cost of eliminating manual work by installing more machines.
The other side is that if everyone is dependent on a fixed, basic, income where would the discretionary spending power come from to buy all the goods made by the robots? There would be no incentive to give them away for free, so the motivation to produce more than just "the basics" would still have to be profit-driven.
When talking to a remote voice on the end of a phone at a call centre, it makes little difference whether that voice belongs to a person or a machine. They both behave "robotically" - working their way through a script and only having a certain number of pre-approved responses to questions.
And further, when we take the next step of having the 'bot on my phone handling all incoming calls and making outgoing ones to call centres, it would make the process much slicker when it is 'bot-to-'bot.
As for being required to inform people they aren't human, I would also like human callers demonstrate that they have more skills and abilities than a bot. If they can't, then what is the point of them?
So when you include all the embedded processors in everything from your electric screwdriver, throw-away tune playing birthday card, remote controls, IoT toys, all the ones in your car(s), routers, phones, PCs and all the rest, I'd reckon on a few hundred per person.
Maybe double or treble that for all the industrial devices, server farms, infrastructure. And all the stuff we take for granted.
So in total, probably a few TRILLION is a good guess.
And equally important: can it be networked to similar machines (preferably made by other manufacturers and run by different labs) to set up its own peer reviews?
And how soon before the drug cartels are buying up every machine that is produced to discover new substances?
That doesn't feel like someone reading my mind at all. To me it feels more like someone peering in my windows and following constantly.
That sounds a lot like paranoia.
Do you feel the same about people in the street? People who look at you? Do you have feelings of hostility towards the mailman, who might actually know what he is delivering - is that an invasion of your privacy? Of the supermarket checkout person who sees all the stuff you buy - as does everyone else in the queue, behind you?
It isn't creepy. It is just part of everyday life. If you don't like it, go and live in a cabin in the woods on your own. Grow your own food and never use the same shop twice.
And so with online advertising. It isn't "stalking" you. Just learn to ignore it.
it seems like explode-and-topple doesn't address the real problem, replacing the actual electrical output of the original turbines.
I would guess that as long as you keep painting the tower to preserve its structural integrity, then it is only the moving parts that are a problem.
So while they are probably the most expensive bit, it shouldn't be beyond the wit of man to replace then on a "disassembly is the reverse of assembly" basis.
The problem with paying people for their "data" is that most of it is very low quality. The example given regarding translation fails to recognise that translation is a learned skill, an experise. You can't just ask 1000 people in the street what they think a translation of Klobürste ought to be.
As for what they "like" or purport to like, that is equally dubious. Apart from the gap between what people say and what they will actually do, once you start paying people for all the "likes" they give you will find they start liking everything. The data becomes worthless.
The point about placing a value on data, as with labour, misses another basic point. Labour adds value - and that is what people are paid for. Not for the act of working X hours a day, but that the product of their labour increases the value of the goods sold: turning raw material into products, turning services into benefits. Unless data from 7 or 8 billion people can be applied to produce something of value, then it is worthless.
A major justification is the idea that removing spatial boundaries between colleagues will generate increased collaboration and smarter collective intelligence
Nonsense.
You can just pack more people in a given space and it's easier for supervisors to check if people are goofing around, sleeping on the job or just plain AWOL.
especially because some tech companies have become very aggressive about demanding big tax breaks
The Guardian article seems at odds with the reality it reports. It suggests that politicians should learn how start-ups are formed and mature. It suggests there is a difference between "old" and "new" technology firms.
The article then go one to say that local areas should be "selling" their area on the attractiveness of its other (small) industries and level of education.
But the article doesn't understand that once a mega-corp is considering moving into an area it has already considered those things and rejected many cities that don't meet its needs. It has already surveyed the local workforce - either to see if they are smart enough to work for it, or desperate enough to accept the low pay it is offering. A mega-corp has already checked up on the supply-chain and availability of local services.
By the time the executives get to sit down with local politicians, they already have a short-list of a dozen or more suitable locations: any of which would do the job. It is then down to those local governments to compete with each other to make the best offer. To gain the benefit of the jobs the company will bring. To see the injection of money: investment and wages into the area. And the possibility (if it is handled right) to attract follow-on companies after the big guys.
There are very few possibilities where the power lies with the local government. Where it can say "take it or leave it" to incoming large companies offering thousands of jobs. Generally it is only once there is an established, recognised, sector already established - so that new arrivals can benefit from the proximity of other, similar, companies.
The article seems like a rather naive description. More written to appeal the the "boo-hoo it's not fair" collection of children and idealists who read The Guardian. Rather than being a mature and informative description of life's realities. The authors are an academic (no surprise!) and a non-profit. So it is not surprising that their views are anti-business and are just a reflection of how they wish the world was run.
The point about automation is that there is no point automating jobs that there is no demand for.
And demand comes from individuals having disposable income to spend on buying stuff. If all their jobs are eliminated and replaced by automation, those people have no money to buy the goods that the automated factories and offices produce.
Even "government" jobs fall foul of the lack-of-demand situation: people with no jobs don't pay any taxes. And without tax income, there is no government - and no government jobs. Whether those are police officers, health workers, teachers, civil servants or city employees such as rubbish collection or sanitation.
You can't even say "ahhh, but everyone will get UBI" because that still has to be financed from somewhere. If not in money, then in kind: handing out free food, free housing, free electricity. You could just about support a subsistence economy, with highly automated farming and building methods. But without a discretionary income, the people reliant on this would literally be living hand-to-mouth, completely dependent on the state. So there still wouldn't be any commercial demand - so no need for all the automated jobs!
The recipients are getting 75% of poverty line payments. If that truly is what the name suggests then it is not enough to live on. The scheme will only run for 3 years, so there is no scope for making life-changing decisions (such as giving up work) knowing that when the scheme ends you get cut off.
And when you read the referenced article, it turns out that this isn't a trial of UBI at all. It is basically just a boost to the benefits system to see if it can save money in other areas: reducing crime, improving public health and streamlining social payments.
Trucks drive a lot differently than cars. Most truck driving is highway driving.
Even so, autonomous trucks will still require all the same "abilities" that autonomous cars will need. And then some more. They will still have to navigate normal roads (the "final mile" problem) and deal with the vagaries of other road users.
So if the critical path to AV deployment is the technology, the limiting factor is still development of the systems needed.
I can see that once AVs gain a foothold on roads, the pressure to go fully AV will be very strong and very rapid. Possibly to the point where supply cannot meet demand. The reasons being that an AV will (once the safety systems are sorted out) never be the cause of an accident, so the burden on human drivers will become immense. Even if there is doubt, the commercial interests behind AV technology will crush any ordinary driver trying to make a defence that the "other guy" (or AV) was at fault. And that will cause driver insurance rates to rocket - to the point where every human driver will face crushing costs.
If I was a car maker, I would be looking towards making a "back-port" of all the smarts. One that could be fitted into existing vehicles - maybe even petrol ones - to fulfill the driver functions without having to replace the entire car. Just rip out thr driver's seat and controls and install a "black box" there, then cover the car with sensors.
So how long after the study has concluded would any flu virus remain viable in the "hotel" (part of the university's Extended Stay Research Unit)? Will the people who are the next "guests" there still be able to contract the flu from the previous experiment?
... is a Linux that doesn't have updates every few days.
Just write the dam' code. Do it properly, with skilled authors and designers so it doesn't contain (so many) bugs and then TEST IT. Not just for function - and that only seems to be that the expected input produces the expected output, but for integration, backwards-compatibility, security and reliability.
That would actually have added value worth paying for. Then every year or two, do it again with a new release.
Most conferences are just a few days away from work. The ones that have a celebrity speaker are just a waste of time if you think you're going to learn any technical skills. At best they will give a techy an idea of which skills they should build up in order to get a better job. But most offer nothing more than a set of proceedings (that will probably never get read), a holiday camp for nerds and a hangover.
Since when has a blogger (or a journalist, for that matter) ever needed knowledge, experience or a reliable source in order to post something about a subject?
90 percent of respondents are very concerned about their internet privacy and 48 percent wish 'more was being done about it.'
Which means they want someone else to do something about it.
I expect an even greater polarisation occurs with being overweight: 100% of people are concerned about it... but what proportion are willing to do something themselves to fix it?
But anyone who relies on the output from a survey is either naive, negligent or is just using it to further their own desires.
We lost [ or destroyed ] our private key, a 64-digit string of random numbers that not one of us remembers
Although all it needs is for 1 copy to still exist. You'd think that someone in the office would have thought "There's zero cost to me keeping a note of that -- what the hell".
netlink sockets are more efficient in theory so we should abandon anything that uses a pseudo-proc, re-invent the wheel and move even farther from the UNIX tradition and POSIX compliance?
But that is always the problem when a system relies on amateurs volunteering their spare time. You can't get them to do what is needed, what is correct or what the overall plan requires.
You can only get them to do what they think is "fun", or that panders to their desire for recognition, self-importance or other forms of emotional payback.
Even when it is third-party companies donating the code, they still only do it for their own self-interest. While some of that might be to further "the cause", a lot of the time it is for self-promotion or as bait for developers - you can spend time writing OSS stuff.
Whatever the reasons, it means that "Linux" can't get the software it needs, or the support, maintenance and updates. The best it can do is to be grateful for the scraps that people want to do.
Slashdot Mirror
Why? Because an inhabited house means there will be the person's wallet, possibly ID or passport, car keys and phone - and someone to tell the combination of a safe, if there is one.
Making believe there is someone there could increase burglaries.A better solution would be a convincingly large dog or two - or at least a good facsimile of one (rather than some of the pathetic commercial offerings). Add to the effect by leaving a dogfood bowl out front and maybe a Beware of the Dog sign (next to the NRA membership sticker!)
going to the sauna at least four times a week was associated with a roughly 50 percent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease or coronary heart disease.
However, those sauna-goers still must die from some cause or other. It would be helpful to know whether not croaking from a heart attack just laid them open to dying from something worse, more painful or lingering just a little further down the line.
UBI is about eliminating the need to work to meet your basic needs. If you want more than the basics, you're going to have to work.
You are thinking too short-term. Sure, for a person who got replaced by a machine - they could probably provide a useful job-function. At least until they are too old to work, or lose their skills, or find that their skills are now obsolete (taxi driver in the world of AVs, for example).
But fast-forward 20 years to the next generation. What would they have learned that made them employable? Would they even have the notion of work, reward. Jump to the next generation after (say) 50 years of UBI. They would accept the "basic" living they and their parents had ever known to be all there was, all there could ever be. Not only would those people be completely unemployable, but there is no guarantee that the state - or anyone else - would even have bothered to educate them. What would be the point?
That is the danger behind UBI. Not how people are a year or two into the prograame. But how completely dependent they would become after a generation or two.
That is a mark in favour of a universal basic income: being unconditional, it is likely to enhance our feelings of control.
Nothing the government gives you is truly yours. They can withdraw your benefits, if enough people vote for that to happen. For example, to cut their taxes or to divert the money to themselves.
Whereas a job that is based on actually providing a necessary or useful service, does provide security. Since the function the employee performs truly is needed. This doesn't hold for most office jobs, for example, as most of them create no value and fulfill no function except empire-building.
The big problem is to identify job functions that really are necessary. While it could be possible to automate them away, if a society is wealthy enough (through automation) there would be little need to save the cost of eliminating manual work by installing more machines.
The other side is that if everyone is dependent on a fixed, basic, income where would the discretionary spending power come from to buy all the goods made by the robots? There would be no incentive to give them away for free, so the motivation to produce more than just "the basics" would still have to be profit-driven.
And further, when we take the next step of having the 'bot on my phone handling all incoming calls and making outgoing ones to call centres, it would make the process much slicker when it is 'bot-to-'bot.
As for being required to inform people they aren't human, I would also like human callers demonstrate that they have more skills and abilities than a bot. If they can't, then what is the point of them?
Maybe double or treble that for all the industrial devices, server farms, infrastructure. And all the stuff we take for granted.
So in total, probably a few TRILLION is a good guess.
a large, stable body of liquid water locked away beneath a mile of ice near Mars' south pole
So some Martian accidentally pulled the plug out and all the water drained away.
And equally important: can it be networked to similar machines (preferably made by other manufacturers and run by different labs) to set up its own peer reviews?
And how soon before the drug cartels are buying up every machine that is produced to discover new substances?
That doesn't feel like someone reading my mind at all. To me it feels more like someone peering in my windows and following constantly.
That sounds a lot like paranoia.
Do you feel the same about people in the street? People who look at you? Do you have feelings of hostility towards the mailman, who might actually know what he is delivering - is that an invasion of your privacy? Of the supermarket checkout person who sees all the stuff you buy - as does everyone else in the queue, behind you?
It isn't creepy. It is just part of everyday life. If you don't like it, go and live in a cabin in the woods on your own. Grow your own food and never use the same shop twice.
And so with online advertising. It isn't "stalking" you. Just learn to ignore it.
it seems like explode-and-topple doesn't address the real problem, replacing the actual electrical output of the original turbines.
I would guess that as long as you keep painting the tower to preserve its structural integrity, then it is only the moving parts that are a problem.
So while they are probably the most expensive bit, it shouldn't be beyond the wit of man to replace then on a "disassembly is the reverse of assembly" basis.
Fire that puppy 1000 times and you've absorbed enough radiation that is unhealthy.
Not a problem for the AV or drone (or shark) it will be mounted on
As for what they "like" or purport to like, that is equally dubious. Apart from the gap between what people say and what they will actually do, once you start paying people for all the "likes" they give you will find they start liking everything. The data becomes worthless.
The point about placing a value on data, as with labour, misses another basic point. Labour adds value - and that is what people are paid for. Not for the act of working X hours a day, but that the product of their labour increases the value of the goods sold: turning raw material into products, turning services into benefits. Unless data from 7 or 8 billion people can be applied to produce something of value, then it is worthless.
A major justification is the idea that removing spatial boundaries between colleagues will generate increased collaboration and smarter collective intelligence
Nonsense.
You can just pack more people in a given space and it's easier for supervisors to check if people are goofing around, sleeping on the job or just plain AWOL.
especially because some tech companies have become very aggressive about demanding big tax breaks
The Guardian article seems at odds with the reality it reports. It suggests that politicians should learn how start-ups are formed and mature. It suggests there is a difference between "old" and "new" technology firms.
The article then go one to say that local areas should be "selling" their area on the attractiveness of its other (small) industries and level of education.
But the article doesn't understand that once a mega-corp is considering moving into an area it has already considered those things and rejected many cities that don't meet its needs. It has already surveyed the local workforce - either to see if they are smart enough to work for it, or desperate enough to accept the low pay it is offering. A mega-corp has already checked up on the supply-chain and availability of local services.
By the time the executives get to sit down with local politicians, they already have a short-list of a dozen or more suitable locations: any of which would do the job. It is then down to those local governments to compete with each other to make the best offer. To gain the benefit of the jobs the company will bring. To see the injection of money: investment and wages into the area. And the possibility (if it is handled right) to attract follow-on companies after the big guys.
There are very few possibilities where the power lies with the local government. Where it can say "take it or leave it" to incoming large companies offering thousands of jobs. Generally it is only once there is an established, recognised, sector already established - so that new arrivals can benefit from the proximity of other, similar, companies.
The article seems like a rather naive description. More written to appeal the the "boo-hoo it's not fair" collection of children and idealists who read The Guardian. Rather than being a mature and informative description of life's realities. The authors are an academic (no surprise!) and a non-profit. So it is not surprising that their views are anti-business and are just a reflection of how they wish the world was run.
The point about automation is that there is no point automating jobs that there is no demand for.
And demand comes from individuals having disposable income to spend on buying stuff. If all their jobs are eliminated and replaced by automation, those people have no money to buy the goods that the automated factories and offices produce.
Even "government" jobs fall foul of the lack-of-demand situation: people with no jobs don't pay any taxes. And without tax income, there is no government - and no government jobs. Whether those are police officers, health workers, teachers, civil servants or city employees such as rubbish collection or sanitation.
You can't even say "ahhh, but everyone will get UBI" because that still has to be financed from somewhere. If not in money, then in kind: handing out free food, free housing, free electricity. You could just about support a subsistence economy, with highly automated farming and building methods. But without a discretionary income, the people reliant on this would literally be living hand-to-mouth, completely dependent on the state. So there still wouldn't be any commercial demand - so no need for all the automated jobs!
And when you read the referenced article, it turns out that this isn't a trial of UBI at all. It is basically just a boost to the benefits system to see if it can save money in other areas: reducing crime, improving public health and streamlining social payments.
That is just the average change. Are we told anything about the standard deviation - is that moving, possibly broader or shrinking.
Is it possible that some of the population are getting dimmer (or whatever IQ tests measure) but that the number of "geniuses" is increasing too.
Trucks drive a lot differently than cars. Most truck driving is highway driving.
Even so, autonomous trucks will still require all the same "abilities" that autonomous cars will need. And then some more. They will still have to navigate normal roads (the "final mile" problem) and deal with the vagaries of other road users.
So if the critical path to AV deployment is the technology, the limiting factor is still development of the systems needed.
I can see that once AVs gain a foothold on roads, the pressure to go fully AV will be very strong and very rapid. Possibly to the point where supply cannot meet demand. The reasons being that an AV will (once the safety systems are sorted out) never be the cause of an accident, so the burden on human drivers will become immense. Even if there is doubt, the commercial interests behind AV technology will crush any ordinary driver trying to make a defence that the "other guy" (or AV) was at fault. And that will cause driver insurance rates to rocket - to the point where every human driver will face crushing costs.
If I was a car maker, I would be looking towards making a "back-port" of all the smarts. One that could be fitted into existing vehicles - maybe even petrol ones - to fulfill the driver functions without having to replace the entire car. Just rip out thr driver's seat and controls and install a "black box" there, then cover the car with sensors.
So how long after the study has concluded would any flu virus remain viable in the "hotel" (part of the university's Extended Stay Research Unit)? Will the people who are the next "guests" there still be able to contract the flu from the previous experiment?
Just write the dam' code. Do it properly, with skilled authors and designers so it doesn't contain (so many) bugs and then TEST IT. Not just for function - and that only seems to be that the expected input produces the expected output, but for integration, backwards-compatibility, security and reliability.
That would actually have added value worth paying for. Then every year or two, do it again with a new release.
Most conferences are just a few days away from work. The ones that have a celebrity speaker are just a waste of time if you think you're going to learn any technical skills. At best they will give a techy an idea of which skills they should build up in order to get a better job. But most offer nothing more than a set of proceedings (that will probably never get read), a holiday camp for nerds and a hangover.
Since when has a blogger (or a journalist, for that matter) ever needed knowledge, experience or a reliable source in order to post something about a subject?
90 percent of respondents are very concerned about their internet privacy and 48 percent wish 'more was being done about it.'
Which means they want someone else to do something about it.
I expect an even greater polarisation occurs with being overweight: 100% of people are concerned about it ... but what proportion are willing to do something themselves to fix it?
But anyone who relies on the output from a survey is either naive, negligent or is just using it to further their own desires.
We lost [ or destroyed ] our private key, a 64-digit string of random numbers that not one of us remembers
Although all it needs is for 1 copy to still exist. You'd think that someone in the office would have thought "There's zero cost to me keeping a note of that -- what the hell".
P.S. have they tried looking under the keyboard?
netlink sockets are more efficient in theory so we should abandon anything that uses a pseudo-proc, re-invent the wheel and move even farther from the UNIX tradition and POSIX compliance?
But that is always the problem when a system relies on amateurs volunteering their spare time. You can't get them to do what is needed, what is correct or what the overall plan requires.
You can only get them to do what they think is "fun", or that panders to their desire for recognition, self-importance or other forms of emotional payback.
Even when it is third-party companies donating the code, they still only do it for their own self-interest. While some of that might be to further "the cause", a lot of the time it is for self-promotion or as bait for developers - you can spend time writing OSS stuff.
Whatever the reasons, it means that "Linux" can't get the software it needs, or the support, maintenance and updates. The best it can do is to be grateful for the scraps that people want to do.