As to the former, it seems we can't go a single story about schools using technology to police any aspect of their students without finding some failing in its implementation.
Do I even need to mention the obvious response to this? The ones that don't fail don't become news stories.
They didn't invent them, but they improved upon them and made them practical. (And then, in the case of the mouse, continued tinkering with them and produced horrible abominations.)
Very good points. #2 is why I've always said that for-profit healthcare is inherently a conflict of interest. (By which I mean actual health care; purely voluntary stuff like plastic surgery may be performed by doctors, but it's not necessary to the maintenance of your health and so it belongs in a different category.)
The thing about #1 and #2 is, I'm all for free markets, but I also recognize the simple fact that they're not a panacea. Free market principles only work when freedom exists in the marketplace. When it's "your money or your life," you don't have that freedom, and the whole system breaks down, so it needs to be run under other principles rather than pretending we have a free market.
What you may not know (even if you know the "what you may not know" from this article) is that there's an independently developed engine and editor system called Super Mario Bros X that allows fans to create not only levels, but entire games complete with overworld maps, supporting game mechanics from SMB 2, 3, and Super Mario World, with bits and pieces of Zelda and Metroid thrown in for good measure.
It was well received in a certain section of the indie game development community, and some really impressive games were built with it. Then a few years ago, all development abruptly ceased and Nintendo somehow took over the domain name for the project. It's now a generic Nintendo portal page.
So it doesn't surprise me in the least to see them pulling a stunt like this.
The so-called "health insurance" companies are evil and need to die. All of them.
First off, they aren't insurance companies. The product they provide does not resemble any other insurance. Imagine if your car insurance worked like your health "insurance": you'd file a claim every time you went to a gas station or a car wash, and if you ever had a fender bender, you'd have to be extra-careful to take it to an in-network body shop or risk having to pay for all the repairs out-of-pocket.
Imagine if homeowner's insurance worked like health "insurance". You want to build a new deck, so you check your paperwork to figure out whether it's Home Depot or Lowe's that's supported, because there's no way you can afford the $20,000 in materials yourself.
No, it's not insurance at all; it's something far more insidious: the vehicle for the financial industry's takeover of our health care system. Here's how it works:
1) Get the talking heads on TV to complain about the cost of health care. 2) Start selling an insurance product to cover the cost of health care. 3) Coordinate with large companies to offer this insurance product in bulk to their employees. It's a benefit! 4) Once a large enough percentage of patients are on health insurance rather than paying out of pocket, conspire with the hospitals to raise prices outrageously on anyone who doesn't have health insurance, which prices everyone paying out-of-pocket out of the market. (Except, of course, the super-rich.) 5) Now that you're paying all the bills for the hospital... well, you know what they call the person who pays all the bills, right? He's called "Boss." At this point, things get even more sinister: by deciding what will and what won't be covered, (by arbitrarily declaring certain treatments "experimental," for example,) the financial industry is now literally in a position to decide who lives and who dies. 6) Get a conservative think tank who's very friendly to the financial industry to propose an "individual mandate:" everyone has to buy your financial product whether they need it or not. When that fails, wait for a new President and a new Congress, dress the idea up as a liberal idea, and ram it through. Now they get to decide who lives and who dies among the entire nation.
Next time you hear talking heads going on about the problem of the uninsured, just remember. We don't need 30 million less uninsured people in the USA, or whatever the latest target number is. What we need is 300 million more. It's simple supply and demand: when everyone's paying for their own health care expenses out of pocket again, everyone will be able to afford to again.
I'd be just fine with real health insurance. I'd gladly buy a policy that covers severe injuries, cancer, major unexpected stuff like that, just like I've got my car covered by a policy for wrecks and serious damage. But what we have right now doesn't look anything like that, and that's a problem that needs to be fixed.
Re: Re: Re: CO2 is a Prerequisite for Life on Earth
Yeah. There are a lot of ignorant people on both sides of it. On the one side, you've got folks who've been led to believe that it's not our fault and there's nothing we can (or should) do about it, and it's probably not that bad anyway. On the other hand, there are people who freak out and overreact and say "get rid of all the CO2," which is wrong and also stupid. But the people who actually understand the science involved aren't saying anything like either of those ridiculous extremes.
Oh yes, I wondered if anyone would trot out the old "scientists with an agenda conspiracy" trope. Anyone who thinks this is horribly mistaken on two points. First, they seem to think it's ridiculously easy to establish and maintain a conspiracy on a massive scale, and second, they have no clue about the motivation of scientists!
Quick, put yourself in the shoes of a random man on the street, of average intelligence and knowledge about the way things work. Who, according to John Q. Public, is the greatest scientist and smartest man that ever lived? That's easy: Einstein, the guy whose very name has entered the lexicon as synonymous with "genius". And now, John, what did Einstein do that made him so famous for being so smart.
"Uhh... e = mc squared, I think?"
Right. And what does that mean?
"I... I dunno. Something about relativity and physics, right?"
That's where things get really interesting. What Einstein did was take established science that everyone was in agreement upon--Newton's Laws of Motion--and find a big problem with them, and then show what the correct model was. And for that, he ended up regarded as the archetypical genius.
Bearing this in mind, if we were to posit the existence of an all-too-human climate scientist driven by ego and not a desire for pure research, (which is by no means an implausible thing to believe in!), then the idea of him distorting and falsifying research to support the status quo doesn't even pass the laugh test; he has every incentive to prove that this thing that everyone in his field believes in is wrong. That's how scientists become famous!
But there's one other very interesting and relevant thing about Einstein's story. As fascinating as Relativity is, it turns out that Newton's laws really weren't all that wrong. Even today, when an engineer goes to calculate things for real-world applications, he uses Newton's equations, not Einstein's, almost every time. The only thing that ordinary citizens regularly use that is designed with relativity calculations is GPS, because it's both dependent on fast-moving satellites in orbit and highly time sensitive, and relativity is all about speed and time distorting the laws of motion. But outside of a highly specific niche, Newton was right, and he was correct enough that we still use his work even now that we know it was wrong.
That sounds pretty reasonable right up until you realize that that's not the way we do anything else at all.
When the doctor tells you you have X and you need to do Y about it, you'll probably either do Y or seek out a second opinion from another doctor. You might even not listen at all, but you certainly wouldn't demand that your doctor explain every detail of the diagnosis and refuse to believe him until he did because he's "obviously hiding something" otherwise.
Likewise if you took your car in for maintenance and they reported that they'd found a problem and told you it would cost a certain amount to fix, you might agree, or you might simply ask for your car back and take it somewhere else (or not), but you'd have to be out of your mind to think that demanding a tour of the inner workings of their diagnostic systems would return any sort of productive results.
As much as deniers with a political motive to detract and distract from the reality of climate change hate to admit it, "trust me, I'm a specialist" is the way of modern civilization. It's called division of labor and it's what our entire society is built upon; we couldn't get even a fraction of the things we do done if we didn't have specialists in many different areas. They learn about all this stuff so the rest of us don't have to.
If a doctor told me something I didn't want to hear, I might ask another doc for a second opinion. But if 97% of all doctors told me the same thing, I'd be a fool not to listen.
Now this is just me talking, and I'm by no means an expert in environmental science, but seems to me one thing that would work relatively well would be to dump the bamboo down abandoned oil wells or coal mines. It has a certain sense of symmetry and appropriateness to it, no?
TPMs are hacking devices designed to take control of your computer (or computerized devices, such as your car) out of your hands. As such, they should be illegal. Full stop. No "unless," no "except," no compromising on this point. The fact that we are even debating whether it should be OK to mess with the TPM that someone installed or not is sheer insanity.
There is actually a much simpler, lower-tech solution: plant tons of bamboo. It grows incredibly fast and sucks CO2 out of the atmosphere. Let it grow up quickly, cut it down, sequester it someplace, (this is important; if you circulate it it will just end up back in the atmosphere soon enough,) and grow more bamboo...
I find that odd. If my car was stolen, and they were able to locate it, no way no how would I want them to kill power while the vehicle was in motion, because I have no idea what's behind the car or how fast it's going, and I'd prefer to get my car back in the same condition it was in when it got stolen!
I would, however, be just fine with saying "kill the engine the next time it stops at a red light."
The police officer directing traffic in the intersection could see the car barreling toward him and the occupant looking down at his smartphone. Officer Rodriguez gestured for the car to stop, and the self-driving vehicle rolled to a halt behind the crosswalk.
Why is this even worthy of special consideration? Any self-driving vehicle worth actually being sold on the consumer market would detect and stop for a pedestrian in the crosswalk anyway, so why would it have to do anything different for a traffic cop?
While I do have some sympathy for those whose lives have been negatively affected by the dissemination of this data,
...why should you? People using that site knew what they were doing, and that it involved risk. The risk of negative consequences for being caught cheating is as old as cheating itself, and attempting to portray someone who knowingly, willingly takes risks with their eyes wide open and then ends up failing as some sort of victim worthy of sympathy is incredibly disingenuous.
On the post: Anti-Cheat Software Company Contracted By Rutgers Fails To Live Up To Privacy Agreement With Students
Do I even need to mention the obvious response to this? The ones that don't fail don't become news stories.
On the post: Trademark Super-Bully Apple Blatantly Infringes On Headphone Company's Trademarks
Re: Re:
On the post: Blue Cross Threatens To End Coverage For Patients At Christian Hospital Group Over Blue Cross Logo
Re: Re:
The thing about #1 and #2 is, I'm all for free markets, but I also recognize the simple fact that they're not a panacea. Free market principles only work when freedom exists in the marketplace. When it's "your money or your life," you don't have that freedom, and the whole system breaks down, so it needs to be run under other principles rather than pretending we have a free market.
On the post: Nintendo Hates You: Massive Takedowns Of YouTube Videos Featuring Mario Bros. Fan-Created Levels
Re: Re:
Can has link plz?
On the post: Techdirt Podcast Episode 42: Adblocking Wouldn't Be A Problem If Ads Didn't Suck So Much
...because that's what the publishing industry always does when faced with disruptive technology, amirite?
On the post: Nintendo Hates You: Massive Takedowns Of YouTube Videos Featuring Mario Bros. Fan-Created Levels
What you may not know (even if you know the "what you may not know" from this article) is that there's an independently developed engine and editor system called Super Mario Bros X that allows fans to create not only levels, but entire games complete with overworld maps, supporting game mechanics from SMB 2, 3, and Super Mario World, with bits and pieces of Zelda and Metroid thrown in for good measure.
It was well received in a certain section of the indie game development community, and some really impressive games were built with it. Then a few years ago, all development abruptly ceased and Nintendo somehow took over the domain name for the project. It's now a generic Nintendo portal page.
So it doesn't surprise me in the least to see them pulling a stunt like this.
On the post: Blue Cross Threatens To End Coverage For Patients At Christian Hospital Group Over Blue Cross Logo
First off, they aren't insurance companies. The product they provide does not resemble any other insurance. Imagine if your car insurance worked like your health "insurance": you'd file a claim every time you went to a gas station or a car wash, and if you ever had a fender bender, you'd have to be extra-careful to take it to an in-network body shop or risk having to pay for all the repairs out-of-pocket.
Imagine if homeowner's insurance worked like health "insurance". You want to build a new deck, so you check your paperwork to figure out whether it's Home Depot or Lowe's that's supported, because there's no way you can afford the $20,000 in materials yourself.
No, it's not insurance at all; it's something far more insidious: the vehicle for the financial industry's takeover of our health care system. Here's how it works:
1) Get the talking heads on TV to complain about the cost of health care.
2) Start selling an insurance product to cover the cost of health care.
3) Coordinate with large companies to offer this insurance product in bulk to their employees. It's a benefit!
4) Once a large enough percentage of patients are on health insurance rather than paying out of pocket, conspire with the hospitals to raise prices outrageously on anyone who doesn't have health insurance, which prices everyone paying out-of-pocket out of the market. (Except, of course, the super-rich.)
5) Now that you're paying all the bills for the hospital... well, you know what they call the person who pays all the bills, right? He's called "Boss." At this point, things get even more sinister: by deciding what will and what won't be covered, (by arbitrarily declaring certain treatments "experimental," for example,) the financial industry is now literally in a position to decide who lives and who dies.
6) Get a conservative think tank who's very friendly to the financial industry to propose an "individual mandate:" everyone has to buy your financial product whether they need it or not. When that fails, wait for a new President and a new Congress, dress the idea up as a liberal idea, and ram it through. Now they get to decide who lives and who dies among the entire nation.
Next time you hear talking heads going on about the problem of the uninsured, just remember. We don't need 30 million less uninsured people in the USA, or whatever the latest target number is. What we need is 300 million more. It's simple supply and demand: when everyone's paying for their own health care expenses out of pocket again, everyone will be able to afford to again.
I'd be just fine with real health insurance. I'd gladly buy a policy that covers severe injuries, cancer, major unexpected stuff like that, just like I've got my car covered by a policy for wrecks and serious damage. But what we have right now doesn't look anything like that, and that's a problem that needs to be fixed.
On the post: Early YouTube Musician Explains How Signing Major Label Deal 'Nearly Destroyed My Career'
Re: Re:
-- Leverage, "The Studio Job"
On the post: DailyDirt: Getting Unwanted Carbon Dioxide Out Of The Atmosphere
Re: Re: Re: CO2 is a Prerequisite for Life on Earth
On the post: DailyDirt: Getting Unwanted Carbon Dioxide Out Of The Atmosphere
Re: Re: Re: What Exactly Is Unwanted CO2?
On the post: DailyDirt: Getting Unwanted Carbon Dioxide Out Of The Atmosphere
Re: Re: Re: Problem with sequestration of CO2
Quick, put yourself in the shoes of a random man on the street, of average intelligence and knowledge about the way things work. Who, according to John Q. Public, is the greatest scientist and smartest man that ever lived? That's easy: Einstein, the guy whose very name has entered the lexicon as synonymous with "genius". And now, John, what did Einstein do that made him so famous for being so smart.
"Uhh... e = mc squared, I think?"
Right. And what does that mean?
"I... I dunno. Something about relativity and physics, right?"
That's where things get really interesting. What Einstein did was take established science that everyone was in agreement upon--Newton's Laws of Motion--and find a big problem with them, and then show what the correct model was. And for that, he ended up regarded as the archetypical genius.
Bearing this in mind, if we were to posit the existence of an all-too-human climate scientist driven by ego and not a desire for pure research, (which is by no means an implausible thing to believe in!), then the idea of him distorting and falsifying research to support the status quo doesn't even pass the laugh test; he has every incentive to prove that this thing that everyone in his field believes in is wrong. That's how scientists become famous!
But there's one other very interesting and relevant thing about Einstein's story. As fascinating as Relativity is, it turns out that Newton's laws really weren't all that wrong. Even today, when an engineer goes to calculate things for real-world applications, he uses Newton's equations, not Einstein's, almost every time. The only thing that ordinary citizens regularly use that is designed with relativity calculations is GPS, because it's both dependent on fast-moving satellites in orbit and highly time sensitive, and relativity is all about speed and time distorting the laws of motion. But outside of a highly specific niche, Newton was right, and he was correct enough that we still use his work even now that we know it was wrong.
Consider the implications WRT climate science.
On the post: DailyDirt: Getting Unwanted Carbon Dioxide Out Of The Atmosphere
Re: Problem with sequestration of CO2
When the doctor tells you you have X and you need to do Y about it, you'll probably either do Y or seek out a second opinion from another doctor. You might even not listen at all, but you certainly wouldn't demand that your doctor explain every detail of the diagnosis and refuse to believe him until he did because he's "obviously hiding something" otherwise.
Likewise if you took your car in for maintenance and they reported that they'd found a problem and told you it would cost a certain amount to fix, you might agree, or you might simply ask for your car back and take it somewhere else (or not), but you'd have to be out of your mind to think that demanding a tour of the inner workings of their diagnostic systems would return any sort of productive results.
As much as deniers with a political motive to detract and distract from the reality of climate change hate to admit it, "trust me, I'm a specialist" is the way of modern civilization. It's called division of labor and it's what our entire society is built upon; we couldn't get even a fraction of the things we do done if we didn't have specialists in many different areas. They learn about all this stuff so the rest of us don't have to.
If a doctor told me something I didn't want to hear, I might ask another doc for a second opinion. But if 97% of all doctors told me the same thing, I'd be a fool not to listen.
On the post: DailyDirt: Getting Unwanted Carbon Dioxide Out Of The Atmosphere
Re: Re: (growing bamboo)
On the post: Should Police Have The Right To Take Control Of Self-Driving Cars?
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: EPA Sides With GM In Telling Copyright Office That Copyright Should Stop You From Modifying Your Car Software
Re:
TPMs are hacking devices designed to take control of your computer (or computerized devices, such as your car) out of your hands. As such, they should be illegal. Full stop. No "unless," no "except," no compromising on this point. The fact that we are even debating whether it should be OK to mess with the TPM that someone installed or not is sheer insanity.
This is why we need to repeal the DMCA, folks.
On the post: Court Rules Gran Turismo Protected By 1st Amendment In Including Company Logos For Realism
Welcome to another episode of Techdirt Advertising Irony Theatre...
On the post: DailyDirt: Getting Unwanted Carbon Dioxide Out Of The Atmosphere
On the post: Should Police Have The Right To Take Control Of Self-Driving Cars?
Re:
I would, however, be just fine with saying "kill the engine the next time it stops at a red light."
On the post: Should Police Have The Right To Take Control Of Self-Driving Cars?
Why is this even worthy of special consideration? Any self-driving vehicle worth actually being sold on the consumer market would detect and stop for a pedestrian in the crosswalk anyway, so why would it have to do anything different for a traffic cop?
On the post: Anonymous Plaintiffs File Misguided Lawsuit Against Amazon, GoDaddy, Others Over Ashley Madison Hack
...why should you? People using that site knew what they were doing, and that it involved risk. The risk of negative consequences for being caught cheating is as old as cheating itself, and attempting to portray someone who knowingly, willingly takes risks with their eyes wide open and then ends up failing as some sort of victim worthy of sympathy is incredibly disingenuous.
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