This is one of those very rare occasions where I would agree with my Libertarian friends that taxation is theft. Taxing something, merely because you have the power to do so, does not justify the tax.
At any rate, a sales tax on online purchases will not affect my buying habits. I usually buy things online because I can't get what I want locally.
Having a way to know the difference between truth or fiction is already irrelevent these days. Far too many people gullibly believe whatever photoshopped stuff they see, and react accordingly. Truth no longer matters. Only truthiness.
Yes, but even if they have a warrant, they still need to maintain proper chain of evidence. That's really the issue I'm talking about. If the FBI can't see what the hacker did to the phone, how do they know, without a shadow of a doubt, that what they found in the phone was actually there and not planted by the hacker?
IANAL, but it seems like they would have a chain-of-evidence problem here or something like that. Let's imagine, instead of a phone, that the FBI wanted to unlock a safe. So they hire a safe cracker, and he says, "I'm going to unlock the safe, but you can't watch me do it." The safe cracker goes into the room, shuts the door. After a few minutes the safe cracker walks out and says, "It's all yours," wherein the FBI finds an open safe. But now we don't know what happened. Did the safe cracker take anything from the safe? Did he put anything in the safe? The FBI doesn't know for sure.
It seems like there could be a similar problem with the phone. If you don't know how it's done, then how do you know if what you see is what was really in the phone? Did the hacker put something in the phone? Did he take anything out? If there is evidence in the phone that says, for example, that Bob Loblaw was part of the conspiracy, can you trust that information?
Basically, it sounds like the FBI hired someone to make it rain. That person lit a fire, and did a little dance, and it rained. And now the FBI is saying, "Hey, we don't know what the guy did. We're just happy that it's raining."
It sounds like to me that the newspapers are taking ownership of the ad content. If so, that means they get to take ownership of the malware that is part of the ad content.
I was just having a conversation about this the other night with some friends. I said, "That's why I don't comment about a lot of stuff. It may be that one day all of those tweets and facebook comments will get sifted through, and someone may decide all you guys need to be in concentration camps." I was half-way joking... but only half-way. It certainly is chilling.
It's not just mass surveillance, however. Social media being what it is, everyone is one bad joke away from becoming the pariah du jour, losing their job, and having their entire life ruined.
I don't know if this example strictly falls under the category of "personalized learning", but the best learning experience I ever had was in my Navy "A" school, that is, the school where I learned my job specialty; in this case, aviation electronics technician. Considering I began in late 1980, the way this learning system worked was pretty advanced.
I don't know the specifics of how the program was developed, but I believe the Navy, working with engineers at IBM, created the system. They took your personal information such as education level, grades, ASVAB score, and even your SAT or ACT score (if you had one) and fed this into some sort of algorithm. The computer (named "Jim-Jim") then developed a course of study for you, with predicted completion times for each module. You then started the self-taught course following the instructions in the reading materials, and given to you by "Jim-Jim". If you needed help, there were instructors available to offer explanation or to delve deeper into concepts. Each module was fairly short and there was a test at the end of each module. A score of 100% was required to pass each test. Any questions missed, and Jim-Jim would send you back to your cubicle for study and/or help from your instructor. You could then re-take the questions you missed. This process continued until you got 100% or failed so many times as to get washed out of the program (a rarity).
There were no boring lectures, or having to suffer through stupid questions from your classmates. You didn't feel like you had to compete with your classmates because the course was self-paced -- the only "person" you were racing against was Jim-Jim. So long as you progressed through the course, passed your tests, and completed things in the time alloted, the instructors pretty much left you alone. If you got far enough ahead of the computer you would even get awarded a day off now and then. Each school day was only a half-day long (you might be in the morning section or the afternoon section). That time could be devoted to study, if you needed it, or if you were far enough ahead, you could pretty much do whatever you wanted.
I enjoyed the school. I found the course challenging enough, yet still managed to stay ahead of the computer schedule. In fact, I enjoyed the challenge of seeing how far ahead of Jim-Jim I could get. I'm sure it was a good deal for the Navy too. Because of the 100% required for passing, they were ensured that everyone who got through the course had been sufficiently exposed to 100% of the material.
Could such a system work in the real world? I don't know. The Navy had an advantage that the real world doesn't in that they could motivate people who were not self-motivated. There were all kinds of creative punishment available if you got behind -- and the last thing you wanted was to get washed out of the course and sent to the fleet. In that case you might spend your whole time in the Navy just chipping paint or working in the laundry.
In short, I would like personalized learning, but I'm pretty self-motivated. I'm not sure how well it would work for kids who didn't give a damn, and who you could not put any pressure on.
I think the First Amendment argument is not as strong as the argument against the government forcing a company to build something that it does not normally build. Should the government be able to force Black and Decker to build firearms? Should they be able to force Dupont to manufacture napalm? Now, if these companies WANT to manufacture these goods, that's one thing, but forcing them to do it is quite another.
I know many of you don't like the idea of this possibility. But I'm fairly certain I once heard Carl Sagan say something to the effect that we may someday have to face the reality that we are the only ones. And I have to ask: is that such a bad thing? I know for sure that Sagan suggested that there would be no place else we could travel to and settle any time soon. This is the only world we know, and it may be the only world we, as a species, will ever know. Therefore it is most important that we take care of this blue dot that we live all live on.
If this is the only blue dot there is, then the care of this home is of even greater priority.
I think the argument that Apple is making is that they are being ordered to build something that doesn't exist and/or offer a service that is outside their normal business practices. It's like forcing conscientious objectors to kill people; or forcing citizens to give room and board to soldiers; or forcing a typewriter manufacurer to make firearms; or forcing a chemical manufacurer to make "death gel".
I could certainly see this going to the supreme court.
I would like to comment on the article, but unfortunately, I can't read it because it's a Forbes article, and I'm running an ad blocker because I don't intend to be infected with malware just to read Forbes articles.
I propose that all of us, the editors included, agree to not post links to Forbes articles until they adjust their pro-malware stance and agree to provide a safe browsing environment.
I think they tried to address those concerns in the article. They did mention that they understand that people block ads for security. And they do say the following:
"You can simply add WIRED.com to your ad blocker’s whitelist, so you view ads. When you do, we will keep the ads as “polite” as we can, and you will only see standard display advertising." "You can subscribe to a brand-new Ad-Free version of WIRED.com. For $1 a week, you will get complete access to our content, with no display advertising or ad tracking."
So they are saying that you will only see standard display advertising, and no advertising or tracking if you subscribe. Of course, the question then becomes one of, "Do I trust WIRED?" As for myself, I don't trust them -- I don't really trust anyone these days; not if they're in the business of selling me something, that is.
That's too bad. I sometimes like to read Wired articles, but I'm not going to open up my devices to malware just to read yet another so-so article that's been vomited on to their website simply to get me to click on ads. There will be twenty other sources telling the same bullshit story. And even if all of them block me too, that's okay, because whatever the story is, it's probably not that important anyway.
The machines have already taken over, even without AI. This is because everyone instantly believes what a machine tells them, no matter what. Look at people who have had their identity stolen. A machine says they took out a loan here, and a loan there. Now the creditor is demanding payment. The victim can't convince the creditor that they did not take out the loan because the machine says they did, and the machine is never wrong. Despite the fact that there is no physical evidence that any loan was ever granted to the victim, the machine is believed over the human. No one ever questions how the data got into the machine. No one ever assumes that any mistake was made at any time. Whatever the machine says is assumed to be the truth.
Recently, a friend related this story. He was at a checkout line at Target, and had purchased about $60 worth of items. He handed the clerk a $100 bill. The clerk mistakenly keyed in an extra zero, and the machine dutifully informed the clerk to make change of about $940. The clerk, without hesitation, started to do this and my friend had to stop her and explain her mistake. The clerk couldn't understand. They eventually had to call a manager over to explain the problem. This girl was prepared to do whatever the machine told her, despite the fact that it didn't make any sense.
We don't need AI for the machines to rule over us.
Well, I thought I had been following the space program pretty closely all these years. I was a little kid in the 60's so I got to watch the early space program develop in real time. But I had never heard of these experiements until today. A few years ago, when the Indians crashed their probe into the moon, I thought, "What an interesting experiment. I wonder why we never thought of that." Turns out, we did think of that. Of course, the two experiments differed in what they were looking for, but they were alike in that someone said, "Hey, let's crash something into the moon in order to learn something more about it."
There is a difference between giving away your wealth and using your wealth to manipulate. Zuckerberg says that his goal is, “advancing human potential and promoting equality,” That's sounds suspitiously like manipulation, not almsgiving. It's just another way to use wealth to project, and even build, power. It might be a kindler and gentler way of doing it, but that's what it is.
At any rate, the Zuckerbergs are very vague so far about what, precisely, they plan to do, so I suppose there is a chance that they will prove me wrong.
Ads are not the only problem with TV. The programming has become pretty ridiculous. Reality TV, especially, is extremely stupid. The only reality TV I used to watch were cooking shows, but I think by now everyone understands that they are not "real", that even the time clocks and whatnot are all BS. A friend, who used to like to watch ghost-hunter shows and Finding Bigfoot, complained last weekend, "They never find any ghosts. They never find Bigfoot. God! I've been wasting my time!" So, bad programming combined with too many commercials is just unbearable. I recently got rid of digital cable and went to bare-bones service. I don't miss it at all, and I'm saving $75 a month.
The very first moments of the film open with the statement that there are fewer female CEOs than there are male CEOs named John. The film literally starts with a divisive claim of sexism. The film is an insult to the many female coders I have known in my 30 years of experience.
Slashdot Mirror
This is one of those very rare occasions where I would agree with my Libertarian friends that taxation is theft. Taxing something, merely because you have the power to do so, does not justify the tax.
At any rate, a sales tax on online purchases will not affect my buying habits. I usually buy things online because I can't get what I want locally.
Perhaps we should stop calling it "lab-grown" meat (or even worse, "in vitro" meat). Perhaps "cultured" meat might be a better term.
Doubtless, Royal Dutch Shell will still have no problem selling oil to everyone else.
Indeed. I'm not sure Disney has had a truly original concept since Steamboat Wille. Disney, an entire entertainment empire built on a single cartoon.
Having a way to know the difference between truth or fiction is already irrelevent these days. Far too many people gullibly believe whatever photoshopped stuff they see, and react accordingly. Truth no longer matters. Only truthiness.
Yawn. All that effort, and yet it's still the same basic story as fifty years ago. Lots of tech... zero creativity.
Yes, but even if they have a warrant, they still need to maintain proper chain of evidence. That's really the issue I'm talking about. If the FBI can't see what the hacker did to the phone, how do they know, without a shadow of a doubt, that what they found in the phone was actually there and not planted by the hacker?
IANAL, but it seems like they would have a chain-of-evidence problem here or something like that. Let's imagine, instead of a phone, that the FBI wanted to unlock a safe. So they hire a safe cracker, and he says, "I'm going to unlock the safe, but you can't watch me do it." The safe cracker goes into the room, shuts the door. After a few minutes the safe cracker walks out and says, "It's all yours," wherein the FBI finds an open safe. But now we don't know what happened. Did the safe cracker take anything from the safe? Did he put anything in the safe? The FBI doesn't know for sure.
It seems like there could be a similar problem with the phone. If you don't know how it's done, then how do you know if what you see is what was really in the phone? Did the hacker put something in the phone? Did he take anything out? If there is evidence in the phone that says, for example, that Bob Loblaw was part of the conspiracy, can you trust that information?
Basically, it sounds like the FBI hired someone to make it rain. That person lit a fire, and did a little dance, and it rained. And now the FBI is saying, "Hey, we don't know what the guy did. We're just happy that it's raining."
It sounds like to me that the newspapers are taking ownership of the ad content. If so, that means they get to take ownership of the malware that is part of the ad content.
I was just having a conversation about this the other night with some friends. I said, "That's why I don't comment about a lot of stuff. It may be that one day all of those tweets and facebook comments will get sifted through, and someone may decide all you guys need to be in concentration camps." I was half-way joking... but only half-way. It certainly is chilling.
It's not just mass surveillance, however. Social media being what it is, everyone is one bad joke away from becoming the pariah du jour, losing their job, and having their entire life ruined.
I don't know if this example strictly falls under the category of "personalized learning", but the best learning experience I ever had was in my Navy "A" school, that is, the school where I learned my job specialty; in this case, aviation electronics technician. Considering I began in late 1980, the way this learning system worked was pretty advanced.
I don't know the specifics of how the program was developed, but I believe the Navy, working with engineers at IBM, created the system. They took your personal information such as education level, grades, ASVAB score, and even your SAT or ACT score (if you had one) and fed this into some sort of algorithm. The computer (named "Jim-Jim") then developed a course of study for you, with predicted completion times for each module. You then started the self-taught course following the instructions in the reading materials, and given to you by "Jim-Jim". If you needed help, there were instructors available to offer explanation or to delve deeper into concepts. Each module was fairly short and there was a test at the end of each module. A score of 100% was required to pass each test. Any questions missed, and Jim-Jim would send you back to your cubicle for study and/or help from your instructor. You could then re-take the questions you missed. This process continued until you got 100% or failed so many times as to get washed out of the program (a rarity).
There were no boring lectures, or having to suffer through stupid questions from your classmates. You didn't feel like you had to compete with your classmates because the course was self-paced -- the only "person" you were racing against was Jim-Jim. So long as you progressed through the course, passed your tests, and completed things in the time alloted, the instructors pretty much left you alone. If you got far enough ahead of the computer you would even get awarded a day off now and then. Each school day was only a half-day long (you might be in the morning section or the afternoon section). That time could be devoted to study, if you needed it, or if you were far enough ahead, you could pretty much do whatever you wanted.
I enjoyed the school. I found the course challenging enough, yet still managed to stay ahead of the computer schedule. In fact, I enjoyed the challenge of seeing how far ahead of Jim-Jim I could get. I'm sure it was a good deal for the Navy too. Because of the 100% required for passing, they were ensured that everyone who got through the course had been sufficiently exposed to 100% of the material.
Could such a system work in the real world? I don't know. The Navy had an advantage that the real world doesn't in that they could motivate people who were not self-motivated. There were all kinds of creative punishment available if you got behind -- and the last thing you wanted was to get washed out of the course and sent to the fleet. In that case you might spend your whole time in the Navy just chipping paint or working in the laundry.
In short, I would like personalized learning, but I'm pretty self-motivated. I'm not sure how well it would work for kids who didn't give a damn, and who you could not put any pressure on.
I think the First Amendment argument is not as strong as the argument against the government forcing a company to build something that it does not normally build. Should the government be able to force Black and Decker to build firearms? Should they be able to force Dupont to manufacture napalm? Now, if these companies WANT to manufacture these goods, that's one thing, but forcing them to do it is quite another.
Once again I have to ask, What is going on in the UK? Or should we start calling it "Airstrip One"?
I know many of you don't like the idea of this possibility. But I'm fairly certain I once heard Carl Sagan say something to the effect that we may someday have to face the reality that we are the only ones. And I have to ask: is that such a bad thing? I know for sure that Sagan suggested that there would be no place else we could travel to and settle any time soon. This is the only world we know, and it may be the only world we, as a species, will ever know. Therefore it is most important that we take care of this blue dot that we live all live on.
If this is the only blue dot there is, then the care of this home is of even greater priority.
I think the argument that Apple is making is that they are being ordered to build something that doesn't exist and/or offer a service that is outside their normal business practices. It's like forcing conscientious objectors to kill people; or forcing citizens to give room and board to soldiers; or forcing a typewriter manufacurer to make firearms; or forcing a chemical manufacurer to make "death gel".
I could certainly see this going to the supreme court.
I would like to comment on the article, but unfortunately, I can't read it because it's a Forbes article, and I'm running an ad blocker because I don't intend to be infected with malware just to read Forbes articles.
I propose that all of us, the editors included, agree to not post links to Forbes articles until they adjust their pro-malware stance and agree to provide a safe browsing environment.
"C'mon guys, we are still relevant! See?"
That is a very good point!
I think they tried to address those concerns in the article. They did mention that they understand that people block ads for security. And they do say the following:
"You can simply add WIRED.com to your ad blocker’s whitelist, so you view ads. When you do, we will keep the ads as “polite” as we can, and you will only see standard display advertising."
"You can subscribe to a brand-new Ad-Free version of WIRED.com. For $1 a week, you will get complete access to our content, with no display advertising or ad tracking."
So they are saying that you will only see standard display advertising, and no advertising or tracking if you subscribe. Of course, the question then becomes one of, "Do I trust WIRED?" As for myself, I don't trust them -- I don't really trust anyone these days; not if they're in the business of selling me something, that is.
That's too bad. I sometimes like to read Wired articles, but I'm not going to open up my devices to malware just to read yet another so-so article that's been vomited on to their website simply to get me to click on ads. There will be twenty other sources telling the same bullshit story. And even if all of them block me too, that's okay, because whatever the story is, it's probably not that important anyway.
The machines have already taken over, even without AI. This is because everyone instantly believes what a machine tells them, no matter what. Look at people who have had their identity stolen. A machine says they took out a loan here, and a loan there. Now the creditor is demanding payment. The victim can't convince the creditor that they did not take out the loan because the machine says they did, and the machine is never wrong. Despite the fact that there is no physical evidence that any loan was ever granted to the victim, the machine is believed over the human. No one ever questions how the data got into the machine. No one ever assumes that any mistake was made at any time. Whatever the machine says is assumed to be the truth.
Recently, a friend related this story. He was at a checkout line at Target, and had purchased about $60 worth of items. He handed the clerk a $100 bill. The clerk mistakenly keyed in an extra zero, and the machine dutifully informed the clerk to make change of about $940. The clerk, without hesitation, started to do this and my friend had to stop her and explain her mistake. The clerk couldn't understand. They eventually had to call a manager over to explain the problem. This girl was prepared to do whatever the machine told her, despite the fact that it didn't make any sense.
We don't need AI for the machines to rule over us.
Well, I thought I had been following the space program pretty closely all these years. I was a little kid in the 60's so I got to watch the early space program develop in real time. But I had never heard of these experiements until today. A few years ago, when the Indians crashed their probe into the moon, I thought, "What an interesting experiment. I wonder why we never thought of that." Turns out, we did think of that. Of course, the two experiments differed in what they were looking for, but they were alike in that someone said, "Hey, let's crash something into the moon in order to learn something more about it."
There is a difference between giving away your wealth and using your wealth to manipulate. Zuckerberg says that his goal is, “advancing human potential and promoting equality,” That's sounds suspitiously like manipulation, not almsgiving. It's just another way to use wealth to project, and even build, power. It might be a kindler and gentler way of doing it, but that's what it is.
At any rate, the Zuckerbergs are very vague so far about what, precisely, they plan to do, so I suppose there is a chance that they will prove me wrong.
Ads are not the only problem with TV. The programming has become pretty ridiculous. Reality TV, especially, is extremely stupid. The only reality TV I used to watch were cooking shows, but I think by now everyone understands that they are not "real", that even the time clocks and whatnot are all BS. A friend, who used to like to watch ghost-hunter shows and Finding Bigfoot, complained last weekend, "They never find any ghosts. They never find Bigfoot. God! I've been wasting my time!" So, bad programming combined with too many commercials is just unbearable. I recently got rid of digital cable and went to bare-bones service. I don't miss it at all, and I'm saving $75 a month.
" It doesn't even touch on issues like sexism..."
The very first moments of the film open with the statement that there are fewer female CEOs than there are male CEOs named John. The film literally starts with a divisive claim of sexism. The film is an insult to the many female coders I have known in my 30 years of experience.