Can anyone elaborate on his comment on this sort of technology "proliferating to smart thermostats (no apps that let you turn your AC cooler when the power company dials it up a couple degrees)?
Demon-Haunted World
261–270 of 289 posts
Re: Demon-Haunted World
#262Can anyone elaborate on his comment on this sort of technology "proliferating to smart thermostats (no apps that let you turn your AC cooler when the power company dials it up a couple degrees)?
I read about a program where owners of some Honeywell smart thermostats will be able to authorize their utilities to turn their AC a few degrees warmer during times of unusually high demand, in exchange for some sort of compensation. But this would be voluntary.
Re: Demon-Haunted World
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
"on the beat, and Trump vowing to fire more regulators, that's what's changed. " I don't really like to defend trumps sayings, but in this case I don't think there are government regulators needed. The company acted shitty and you took the consequences and quit and avoid this company. That's how market works. No need for regulation here. The "only" problem with this in general today is, that most people do not unders…
> The company acted shitty and you took the consequences Historically, "the consequences" have often included "you die horribly". Sure, we can all avoid Hooker Chemical Company. (Well no, we can't, because it doesn't sell to consumers and we can't find out who consumer companies are supplied by.) But if we could , it wouldn't have saved anyone living in Love Canal. They got leukemia no matter what the market did afte…
Erm, I think there is a major difference between those two examples.
If a digital company and me don't come along I quit contract and it is not really anybody else business nor harm, only mine if I feel treated unfair. And the companies reputation, as I will share my bad experience.
But if a company is poisoning the real world, than this is clearly a crime. And I did not say, no more police is needed.
Re: Demon-Haunted World
#264See efforts to pass Right-to-Repair laws in several U.S. states: https://repair.org & https://ifixit.org/right From http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a2... "... farmers have worked on their own equipment "for decades, generations even." Brasch also pointed to the emerging DIY sources of information in the world as a way that farmers and others who want to make repairs can learn about their equ…
The sad part of the "right to repair" laws is that they're going to force Apple to stop doing the "Activation Lock" feature that has been a real boon to everyone who doesn't steal consumer electronic devices.
Re: Demon-Haunted World
#265This isn't a new demon-haunted world, this is the old, demon-haunted world before nineteenth-century progressive politics, back when "milk" that wasn't half chalk still might have a fish in it (see famous Thoreau quote on evidence.) We aren't enforcing the laws we have and our grandfathers and mothers had. (Three guesses why.) Not on monopolies, contracts, patent misuse... nothing. Just this week I and Hearthstone ca…
"on the beat, and Trump vowing to fire more regulators, that's what's changed. " I don't really like to defend trumps sayings, but in this case I don't think there are government regulators needed. The company acted shitty and you took the consequences and quit and avoid this company. That's how market works. No need for regulation here. The "only" problem with this in general today is, that most people do not unders…
Government regulations exist to fix market failure, usually due to information asymmetry. In the old days it was milk in chalk, in the modern day it's closed source code riddled with spyware and engine firmware that cheats emissions tests. Market failure in my book.
We need more, smarter regulations, not less.
EDIT: I don't think it's reasonable to expect everyone to educate themselves on every technical advance. That's not possible with the complexity of technology people encounter in their everyday lives. And that's without even talking about the invisible technology we never see directly, like the software controlling our voting machines, hospital equipment, power plants, etc.
Re: Demon-Haunted World
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
"on the beat, and Trump vowing to fire more regulators, that's what's changed. " I don't really like to defend trumps sayings, but in this case I don't think there are government regulators needed. The company acted shitty and you took the consequences and quit and avoid this company. That's how market works. No need for regulation here. The "only" problem with this in general today is, that most people do not unders…
Government regulations exist to fix market failure, usually due to information asymmetry. In the old days it was milk in chalk, in the modern day it's closed source code riddled with spyware and engine firmware that cheats emissions tests. Market failure in my book. We need more, smarter regulations, not less. EDIT: I don't think it's reasonable to expect everyone to educate themselves on every technical advance. Tha…
" in the modern day it's closed source code riddled with spyware and engine firmware that cheats emissions tests."
Yeah well, so the problem to me is not really missing regulations, but missing the will to use open-source.
And that is what I meant, that most people have no idea about technology.
To them it does not matter if something is open-source or not as they do not know the difference - they understand neither, it is all dark magic to them.
And of course, not everybody needs to have studied IT like we did. But I also do not understand the Linux kernel - yet I trust it. Because it is open-source and I can get in touch with the people developing it and see how it is done.
So I trust them.
And ordinary people could at least understand the same: if something is developed in the open, then other people have the chance to check it. If it is closed - much harder. Very simple. And I have no doubt, that this knowledge will get in the heads of the people. It just takes some time (and action of course) - Computers for everyone is a quite new thing ...
Re: Demon-Haunted World
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm guessing you have an iPhone? Apps are getting larger due to more and more code accumulating as time goes on and apple's toolkit / compilers causing binaries to become larger. Swift itself creates incredibly bloated binaries compared to objective-c. More people are using more 3rd party libraries than 5 years ago, where you just used apple's built in libraries for the most part. If you just used the shared system l…
You guessed right. I figured that aging of the tech vs package size would be an issue, including the growing size of the OS... but do you think this is a problem even in long-life applications? I mean, surely AAC and MP3 files haven't bloated so significantly in the past 5 - 10 years. I haven't worked much yet in Swift and wasn't aware of those differences vs Objective-C, though. That's interesting.
MP3 hasn't changed as a standard or probably as a codebase for decades. Your apps are changing every week, and apps tend to grow in size as more and more code & features are added to them. It's a natural consequence of most software projects.
The binary size of swift projects doesn't catch most people, only large projects with > 400k lines of code as they go over the cellular download limit. It's the new hotness, so many projects are adding swift even if the app is old.
Adding swift to a project adds ~20MB alone for the standard libraries that get included with each app, and each line of swift creates that much more binary bloat. The autogenerated interface between swift and objective C creates even more bloat.
Re: Demon-Haunted World
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
What sort of weird gas station requires you to specify the amount of gas before actually refueling your car? Is that a USA-only thing? Never seen that in Europe.
I don't think OP was saying that. The pump asks Y/N if you want a receipt before you pump, but prints it after the pumping. That said, you do specify the amount of gas if you're paying cash here in the US. You go inside, say "here's $20", and the pump will dispense exactly that.
If you're paying with cash you usually have to prepay. If you're paying with card the station does a preauth on your card (and usually a temporary hold) then does the final authorization after you finish pumping and it knows the total. Sometimes you have to pump twice if you want to go over the preauth hold amount, which is usually $50.
It's worth noting that it wasn't that way the entire time I was growing up. You would pump first then pay the cashier. It wasn't until around 2005ish that I noticed signs instructing cash customers to prepay.
Re: Demon-Haunted World
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where do you live that you can get a receipt? The printers never have any paper in my area.
Can't you report them if they never have paper?
I've seen "out of paper, cashier has receipt" before. Never seen "out of paper, too bad, no receipt for you" before.
Re: Demon-Haunted World
#270FTA: "Dieselgate killed people" What's the source for this claim?
Probably the study discussed here https://arstechnica.com/science/2015/10/vw-emissions-fraud-w... (edit: slightly more specific link)