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Comment Re: Foxconn Factories' Future: Fewer Humans, More (Score 3, Insightful) 187

Weren't people saying the same sort of things when the "assembly line" was first invented? After all, the main purpose of the "assembly line" was to make the same amount of stuff with fa fewer workers than had been needed previously.

Oddly, we seem to have managed to get past the introduction of the assembly line without the sort of problems you're predicting - humanity is still here, its population is still growing, and technology is still advancing.

Comment Re:And still (Score 1) 196

If Pluto is a planet, then so is Eris (which is larger), and Earth's moon (around 5 times larger than Pluto) is possibly a binary planet. Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, is under 3% the mass of Earth and is about ten times bigger than Pluto. There are quite a lot of moons bigger than Pluto, so would you want to classify them all as planets?

Comment Re: I ride a recumbent trike (Score 1) 304

62F is apparently around 16C, which is the sort of temperature where you're going to be warm enough to not need a coat while cycling. I've not had problems cycling at any temperature above freezing (and then it's the ice on the road that's the problem, not the temperature). Do you cycle naked or something?

Comment Re: Who did the study? (Score 1) 341

Facts mattered? Must've been a long time ago.

Money matters. And I don't even want to solve whether the money from those industries that don't want to face expenses to deal with stricter environment laws matters more than that from industries that want to sell the stuff that makes the former compliant with stricter environment laws.

In the old days there may have been some scientific process to determine who's right. You know, with thesis, antithesis and discussion. Today it's way easier: Whoever contributes the most campaign money is right.

Comment Re:Foxconn Factories' Future: Fewer Humans, More R (Score 3, Insightful) 187

Actually, reviewing U6 and discouraged workers, we are at record levels of unemployment. Close to 25% of the working age population isn't working. They are going on disability early, retiring early- but many 16 to 54 year olds who worked in the past are not finding employment. I know several people in this category.

It is much rougher for 30 year olds than it was when I was 30. Some retrain and then the job they were training for is swamped by so many applicants that wages are supressed.

I was hoping retiring boomers would take up the slack but I read 80% of them have no under $20,000 savings and will not be able to voluntarily retire. Plus boomers in good slots are simply continuing to work and have no intention of retiring and letting those slots open up to younger people. By the time this group dies or retires at 77 to 82- the generation behind them is nearly at retirement age- never having had the good earnings years the generation before them had.

Advances in AI will make it possible to replace large swaths of 'smart' and 'creative' jobs by 2050. And they won't even consider that to be "real" AI by them. Whenever we get a real AI, it will be a massive paradigm shift. Robotics already have superhuman performance when "plugged" in . So an easily clonable AI combined with super human bodies obsolete humans overnight.

Comment Re:Fuck it - everyone for themselves. (Score 1) 374

I'm confused. The chart you linked shows.

LED consumes less electricity.
LED lasts much longer (so less physical waste)
LED has a total cost of ownership lower than CFL. (About $110led* vs $126cfl vs $496inc)

Also
LED doesn't have mercury (and I know most CFL bulbs are not disposed of properly)...

75 watts are past the sweet spot now (tho you can get good ones for $19).
60 and 65 watts are $9 to $12 now.

Personally, I like 65 watts-- friendlier on my aging eyes. 900 lumens vs 850 lumens makes a big difference.

Really- I hate CFL. Even the 3500K ones. Even 65w ones. The rated life isn't what they say it is. CFLs may be rated for 10,000 hours but by the time I hit 6000 hours, the lumen output drops visibly. I'm replacing LED with CFLs as much as possible. So far.. I have never replaced an LED yet due to failure.

*with a 26.50 bulb addressing error you point out.

Comment Re: Foxconn Factories' Future: Fewer Humans, More (Score 1) 187

Great... for the half of the population at iq 100 and above. What about the average to below average 3.5 billion people?
They supposed to just roll over and die?

One of the links was to a company where robots are already constructing robots.

Robot development jobs are under 1:1000 of the jobs replaced.

Robot repair also needs under 1% of the workers.

If robots were not cheaper than humans, businesses wouldn't replace humans with robots.

Going forward- it's pretty much leadership as you point out (under 1/1000 of the employees) or creative jobs. But-- they automate everything except the creative part and lay off 140 employees while retaining 20. They also use the code phrase "focus the humans on the 'best parts of their jobs'" and "cost savings" (i.e. staff reduction). There are a million security guards in the country.

Projected results from the new robotic security guards in the pipeline are 95%. They can patrol, video, raise alerts, - even detain suspects- as well as a human being.

If we don't figure out how to transition effectively, you are going to see large scale civil unrest.

Unemployed humans. And significantly depressed demand for goods.

Comment Re:who cares ? (Score 2) 185

If I am looking for Foobar Inc's website, and I see www.foobar.com, I can be pretty sure that is legitimate.

That's not been true for a decade. Due to overloading (i.e. multiple organisations, same name), the Foobar Inc you are looking for could be at foobar.com - but it could also be at foobar-inc.com or foobarinc.com or foobar-newyork.com or foooobar.com or whatever domain name was still available when they finally went on the Internet.

Comment Re:Greedy bastards. (Score 1) 185

It highlights a problem with the DNS system since ICANN took over.

We used to have a logical, hierarchical system. Any company would be under .com and any university under .edu -- then it broke apart and you would find anything under .com and anyone who couldn't get the .com name under .org, .net or whatever.

Then ICANN came along and greed won. Now you'll find anyone under anything, provided they paid for it. The TLD part has become entirely meaningless as it does not convey meaning anymore. ".dev" does not actually mean anything. You might think it means something if you associate those three letters with a meaning, but actually it only means "owned by Google".

We should just ditch the .tld entirely and that's it.

Comment Re:And no one cares (Score 1) 185

Sarcasm aside, professionals use the right tool for a job. Not necessarily the most complex or expensive or technical. A professional knows when to use the combo-hyper-pro-magic-machine as well as when to take a hammer or a screwdriver.

URLs have a reason to exist, and they will. The same way that IPs have a reason to exist and will, even though we rarely use them today. But 10 years ago, I knew the IPs of all my servers by heart. Today I need them rarely, but sometimes I do and I know where to find them. Today I know all my domains by heart. Maybe in 10 years I will use them rarely, but when I do, I know how to do it.

Comment Re:this is one more reason (Score 1) 136

guilty until proven innocent.

If you have the long laundry list of crimes that Kimble has, and everyone with any interest in the subject is wondering how you're still not in jail, then yes, that is the proper approach.

Don't get me wrong, in a court of law, I'm all for the innocence assumption. But outside, in the real world, when you're dealing with a career criminal then for your own safety you should assume that he's not suddenly turned into a little angel just because you are such a sweety to him.

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