I've heard that some of these AI phone chatbots can cost up to $0.30 USD/minute. That's $18/hr, which is probably more than it costs employ most call center workers...
Plus, call center workers don't get stuck in hilarious loops when you claim to have trouble understanding them, and need them to say "Albuquerque, New Mexico" any time they say a word that starts with the letter A or ends with the letter O in order to proceed...
This is a stupid approach. You're slapping a bandaid on the symptom while the underlying disease is running rampant. Jury nullification isn't the answer. Hell banning Flock isn't the answer. The answer is stopping the government from buying private citizens data, and passing some actual real privacy laws that prevent companies who have obtained people's data from selling it to anyone. That instantly would fix far more.
It's part of the answer. The people destroying the cameras are helping to bring it into the mainstream media, so refusing to convict them means that more people will do it, and it will get more attention. Plus cities may decide it's not worth it to pay for cameras that only last two days, then pay to prosecute people that are impossible to convict.
Plus, a widespread campaign of jury nullification that's successful for this will send a message that we won't let them get away with stuff like this.
The article says that the economy seats are limited, more higher class seating. I can't wait for the laugh from when I hear what a first class seat on this flight costs. Fist class seats on current flights go for ~$10k. I expect that flights on these new planes will be significantly higher.
Biasing towards premium economy/business/first class might work out:
- The higher classes already subsidize lower cost economy seats, so having fewer of them might not actually raise prices on premium classes. If anything it might steal high-profit pax from other routes.
- This direct flight provides a time-saving, less-likely-to-miss-connection, less-likely-to-lose-baggage option for those willing to pay for a higher class
- The premium passengers would tend to gravitate towards this route, while economy might tend to gravitate towards shorter legs so they're not stuck in a middle seat so long
America tried this under Nixon. And reacted exactly as you're predicting; it was instituted in January 1974, and rescinded within the year. Turns out, if nothing else, parents hate elementary school students walking to school or waiting for buses in pitch black at the coldest time of day.
Ha... I can't remember the last time I've seen elementary-age students *walking* to school. Even in perfectly nice weather in daylight. All the schools around here are traffic nightmares of each parent dropping off one student from a giant SUV.
I had to walk, but that was in the early 1980s.
If the Netherlands did this, they would reverse it immediately after the first winter. Not getting any sunlight until past 10.00 AM is so annoying, and the cost of road maintenance because rush hours is when everywhere, there is still ice on the roads, will be prohibitive.
People complaining have simply no clue how it is to have DST in the winter, and can't imagine.
Sunlight in the morning is relatively useless: most people are waking up, getting ready for work, and going to work, all of which can be done with artificial light.
Sunlight in the evening is valuable: people get off work and need to work in their yards, kids have after-school sports/activities, etc. outside, which are all either easier or only possible with sunlight.
Instead of destroying the cameras outright, it would be interesting to see if you could add another camera to the pole (either wire into the existing power source, or add your own solar). Now you have full control of footage from the same angle, and can either publicly release it, calming to be from the flock camera, or use it to target FOIA requests at other useful people.
If you get enough people in an area together, you can start to coordinate your small FOIA requests around where city officials are and/or don't want to be seen, and build a good picture of their behavior. Once you have a starting point for the mayor, and know what direction they were going, you can find other people in the group in the area at the same time, and put in additional FOIA requests until you have the whole route covered. Then start publishing their every movement.
Catch a few city council members at/near strip clubs, etc., and watch the cameras disappear.
Everyone does. Especially permanent anti-drone defenses.
The next war of aggression between physically adjacent countries will probably be drone blitzkrieg.
Imagine if Russia had already had a million cheap drones. Day one of the war would have seen 100,000+ launched all at once, targeting every piece of infrastructure in Ukraine, almost instantly rendering the country unlivable.
A patient enemy could pre-place thousands of Operation Spiderweb-esqe containers all over the US - using drones assembled in-country - and do the same thing here.
Treat the set date like a starting point, and make it so that any time that date field is accessed, it returns a random date between what you've set and one calculated based on the average human lifespan.
Give them some junk data to chew on.
You know that would work if the 1980s didn't exist and if there weren't a whole bunch of kids who grew up on video games... I mean Jesus Christ dude you grew up on video games or at least around them.
As someone who grew up loving video games in the 80s (elementary and middle school aged then), it was a totally different situation than now. The games were more arcade-y, instead of designed to get you attention-addicted, and in order to use a game console, you had to share the one (in our case) TV in the house with everyone else, which severely limited available time.
When computer gaming started to become common in the late 80s/early 90s, you practically had to have a computer science degree to get some of those games to run on resource-starved PCs, and the problem analysis/solving skills that honed stood a lot of us in good stead for high-paying careers later on.
Wait, they require you to provide a phone number to get a phone number? So people who don't already have one can't ever get one?
Consistently amazed that Capitalism(TM) only has good characteristics and apparently no bad.
The only other thing that seems to come close is religon.
Well, that kind of depends on whether or not you're the one that owns the capital...
Another mistake that many Western observers make is thinking that Russia will seek an exit if they can just "save face." Puttin doesn't care about "face" because this is existential for him. The economy will collapse if the war is shut down. War spending is now into double digits of the GDP. He's in his 70s. This war is his last chance to realize his life dream of reuniting the USSR and becoming "Vlad the Great." He can't just accept a fig leaf agreement and let it go because that's the end of that dream and likely his rule. Even the offer of "just give up the Donbas" probably isn't real. If Ukraine said "yes", they'd ask for more because they can't actually accept a real peace.
This is why the fastest way to end the conflict after Putin's ICC arrest warrant was issued would have been for the US and/or EU to fund a $billion+ bounty to any group that delivered him to the ICC to face the charges. His own security would sell him out in days, and if not, he'd be so paranoid he probably couldn't function.
You haven't priced plane tickets in the past month or so, have you?
Considering what the end price tag for this will be at "completion" (if in fact it is ever completed and running)....I can't imagine ticket prices for this train will be very competitive to the airplane ticket for same destination(s).
The math is pretty easy... even if you had 100,000 riders/day for 50 years, it would still cost over $120/day/rider to pay off the initial investment - that doesn't even count ongoing costs. If you're paying interest on $231B, those 100k riders at $120 won't even pay the interest. $300-400+ per ticket would probably be necessary, but no one's going to pay that.
I think the biggest technical problem is that I don't think people with that kind of "net worth" really personally own what gives them that worth. There's already a lot of incentives to not have assets in your name (protecting against lawsuits, divorce, etc.), so how many of these billionaires are actually penniless in a legal sense?
Basically, you could have billions in a checking account owned by a trust, and just be an "authorized user" on a credit card that some lawyer trustee pays off from the trust. Congrats! You have no wealth to tax.
"I prefer the blunted cudgels of the followers of the Serpent God." -- Sean Doran the Younger
