No disagreement that white collar workers are capable of doing blue collar work (with training/guidance...i do think it's a bit presumptive to assume white collar skills are a superset of blue collar ones. I've done some basic electical, plumbing, automotive, and hvac work, but i'm certainly not flushing refrigerant lines or replacing a furnace, swapping out a transmission, or other "major" projects, there is a whole other category of training+experience required with those kinds of jobs to do them right). So if the original poster's point was that once all the white collar workers get laid off, the blue collar workers are screwed due to lack of demand, i guess.....ok?

But that didn't seem to be the point, it seemed to be a claim that AI was going to do blue collar work, and that premise is patently ridiculous. Because the reasoning/intelligence that AI brings to the table isn't the (only) major challenge in doing a blue collar job. It's the physical requirements involved in doing those jobs for which we do not have robotic capability.

Genuinely curious, how are blue collar jobs that require climbing into attics and crawlspaces and generally performing physically demanding/relatively high dexterity tasks in addition to solving the vision and planning problems associated with any basic hvac, plumbing, or electrical job, more ripe for replacement by Ai than desk jobs that only need computation?

You need to solve a whole class of physical robotics challenges that no one has demonstrated they can solve at a speed needed to compete with a human or in a real world diverse environment.

Boston robotics showing a robot doing cartwheels is not the same thing as climbing into an attic and balancing on joists while running new thermostat wires.

i'm not european but based on my colleagues who are, they wanted to come back to the office during covid because most europeans, unlike americans, do not have big houses with extra rooms to be dedicated for 1-2 people to have a functional work at home setup. They needed that office space to go to and work.

Many of them also don't have the god-awful traffic induced commutes that require spending 30+ minutes driving a car each way because they have functional public transit systems and/or live closer to their offices (denser populations), so avoiding the commute isn't as important for them.

So i think the author has a misguided conclusion about *why* europeans aren't pushing harder for work at home. That doesn't mean it's not useful or effective for the rest of us.

Not just electricity, the refrigerants used in air conditioners also tend to be really bad greenhouse gases as well as depleting the ozone layer.

Yes they are theoretically sealed systems, yet a lot of that refrigerant ends up escaping to the atmosphere one way or another. Hence why we keep changing refrigerants every few years trying to find the balance of "doesn't totally wreck the environment" and "functions efficiently as a refrigerant"

> I suspect that is not what you meant by "privilege of the current system", I just thought I'd turn it around to demonstrate how deep the BS has got.

"The current system" is still one that privileges the same groups it always has. DEI did not change that, it barely got a chance to do anything before the usual whiners complained about losing their special positions. I'm sure you thought you were being super clever though.

> It is near impossible for applicants to any job, university, or whatever, to differ on nothing but their DEI "scores". Someone is almost certainly to come out on top on measures of pure merit. DEI policies had an inherent problem of undermining merit based selection. Selection on merit alone is diluted if there's anything but merit being considered. There is no fixing racism with more racism.

Yeah, I guess since we can't define a perfect evaluation system, we should go back to just letting qualified people slip through the cracks for no reason other than "this is how we've always done it" (seasoned with a little racism on the side).

DEI asks that we acknowledge differences in opportunity and what "qualified/competence" looks like and attempt to account for it in our thinking. To you that may look like "racism", but it's a far cry from what historically falls under that umbrella (e.g. refusal to serve blacks, separate facilities/schools, refusing to hire them, refusal to rent to them, refusal to give them access to financial institutions). So white people are terrified of having to compete with a minority who might even be slightly less qualified if one were able to perform a perfect objective analysis (spoiler alert: this isn't possible anyway and we all know the interview processes are largely a crap shoot already anyway), but if it means opening the aperture to consider a wider swath of candidates, and what unique and valuable things they might bring to the table that haven't been traditionally considered, that does help address some of the intrinsic structures and penalties that historic racism (see that other phrase you probably hate, critical race theory) has put in place.

It's very similar to the paradox of intolerance. Nazis don't get to say "you must tolerate my intolerant beliefs, or else you're not supporting tolerance". They also don't get to say "you can't give the same advantages to the people we oppressed, as i've enjoyed my entire life because now you're being racist"

Except DEI (and equal opportunity and affirmative action) is intended to be exactly what you describe at the end. "hire the more diverse/minority candidate all things being otherwise equal". Sometimes that means you have to look a little harder to *find* the equally qualified diverse candidate, because of the results of systemic challenges and processes. Hence things like the NFL coaching interview process that requires them to interview(not necessarily hire) a black candidate.

But as usual to people who've enjoyed the privilege of the current system, any attempt to even the scales feels like oppression to them.

But you probably knew this.

Oh and you're wrong about tang too:

"Tang was used by early NASA crewed space flights. In 1962, when Mercury astronaut John Glenn conducted eating experiments in orbit, Tang was selected for the menu; it was also used during some Gemini flights, and has also been carried aboard numerous space shuttle missions."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_(drink_mix)

Your other snark aside, the space pen was used in space.

"Fisher invented it independently and then, in 1965, asked NASA to try it. After extensive testing, NASA decided to use the pens in future Apollo missions.[8][10][11] Subsequently, in 1967 it was reported that NASA purchased approximately 400 pens for $2.95 apiece (equivalent to $26 each in 2022).[10][12]

In 2008, Gene Cernan's Apollo 17-flown space pen sold in a Heritage auction for US$23,900.[13]"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen

Sure, it won't make errors that are easy to statically check for.

But will it create race conditions?
Data corruption?
Code that falls over at scale?
Subtly misinterpretted the requirements and ends up doing the wrong thing in edge cases?

There are so many other ways for code to be fundamentally flawed that are not easily checked for or universally handled correctly in any existing code it could have "learned" from.

I see it the other way. Code is generally either right or wrong, there isn't much margin for error. Artistic/creative works have much more leeway. As such, given how today's AI systems work, i think they are likely going to be better at doing work that has that margin for error or multiple correct answers. It may be a useful tool for coders, but producing correct code without skilled supervision seems harder than generating clip art, stock photos, or creative writing.

Also, overdraft protection is not a loan from the bank. They are moving your own money from your other accounts you have with them, to cover the withdrawal. If you don't have another account w/ sufficient funds, overdraft protection won't do anything, your withdrawal will be denied(and you'll probably pay some other fee for that)

I don't really see any reason that can't/shouldn't be a free service, except that:
1) banks want to force you to keep money in the lowest interest yielding account (your checking account)
2) there are federal limits on how many times you can transfer money out of a savings account, per month

Those are certainly good reasons for the rules/system, but there are also cases where banks deliberately order your transactions to maximize the overdraft pain (withdraw the largest amount first, then ding you for each and every subsequent transaction that overdrafts, instead of drafting the smallest amounts first, and then dinging you for overdraft on the final large transaction that exceeds the balance)

Which I would definitely categorize as "some sneaky attempt to profit excessively from small balance account holders"

no, but it makes it unlikely you're going to get a reply to your question of "What particular Files are you trying to "Move" between what two particular Apps?" which appeared to be directed at me since I doubt you expect the author to respond.

All of that was quotes from the article. I've never used an iPhone.

from the FAQ in the article:

Why don’t you just use an iPhone Mini?

I actually do now! I switched from Android back to iPhone in late 2021 because the Pixel 6 was too ridiculously large. This was my first iPhone since the OG iPhone.

But only 5% of all iPhones sold are Minis (roughly 10m phones per year). This means that Apple may decide to kill the Mini. For Apple, 10m phones is peanuts. But for an independent company 10m units per year would be spectacular.

If Apple kills the Mini, those people will need a new home. An Android phone (with Beeper for iMessage) might be an adequate alternative.

Also, personally, after 6 months of iOS I am itching to get back to Android. Why? The notification system SUCKS on iOS compared to Android. It’s impossible to move files between apps. Hard to get any work done on it. Beautiful hardware though!