TenaciousValor · HackerTrans

TenaciousValor

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'Schrems II' ruling on EU dataflows could have unintended consequences

europeanlawblog.eu

1 pointsby TenaciousValor7 tahun yang lalu0 comments

How the Roomba Company Decided to Stop Making Bots for the Military

nymag.com

2 pointsby TenaciousValor8 tahun yang lalu0 comments

comments

7 tahun yang laludiscuss

>> The founders had a very good rationale for putting it in.

> Yeah, slavery.

No, tyranny of the majority. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

Even women couldn't vote, so it's not fair to say that slavery was the rationale. No reasonable person today would say that the 3/5 Compromise or denying universal suffrage is desirable.

Other commenters have also mentioned a necessity to ratify the Constitution. That also applies here as well.

7 tahun yang laludiscuss

Perhaps those who live in urban areas may want to consider moving to a rural area so their vote can matter more. Living in a large urban area and voting Democratic is generally meaningless. Move to a rural area (or a small city), and the game's different.

The political implications of showing urbanites that (some) rural areas are better places to live than is currently being preached could get interesting.

7 tahun yang laludiscuss

You may find my post in this thread useful.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20683615

7 tahun yang laludiscuss

I was curious what mathematics this startup uses to calculate your return on investment. Based on my research (you can verify it by plugging in identical values on their site), this is the formula they use (written in Python):

=========

STARTCODE

=========

annual_interest_percentage = 9.75

duration_of_stay = 36

rent_back_percentage = 7.

rent_monthly = 1500.

seed_investment = 3000.

invested_rent = round(rent_monthly * duration_of_stay)

monthly_investment = rent_monthly * (rent_back_percentage / 100.)

appreciate = seed_investment

for _ in range(duration_of_stay):

    appreciate = appreciate + monthly_investment

    appreciate = appreciate + (appreciate * annual_interest_percentage / 1200.)

appreciated_investment = round(appreciate)

roi = appreciated_investment - invested_rent

=========

ENDCODE

=========

We can gain a few valuable insights from this:

1) Arrived will be investing some portion of the money you provide them (no surprise there).

2) They are assuming they can get 9.75% annual returns on their investment.

3) For the values plugged in above ($1500/month rent, living in same place for 3 years), the ROI is $-45,579.

4) With the values from item 3, if your "seed_investment" is $37,601 or higher, your ROI is positive.

5) For a place like SF ($4000/month rent, living in same place for 3 years), the ROI is $-121,545.

What pisses me off about Arrived is the snake oil. All the language on their site makes it seem like you're going to be having a stake in the ownership, but you never will. They use the term "home" not as something you own but as the place you live, yet the context makes it sound like ownership. Arrived will keep the home after you're done. Know what they don't say? If you're liable for repairs on the property. Because they're selling this as a way to "build home ownership," I'd wager the leaser will be responsible. If so, they're trying to be landlords who shirk responsibility.

They're a financial investment firm buying up property without the obligations of being a landlord.

At first, I thought this was an example of a land contract [1]. However, this is almost more nefarious. At least with a land contract, the buyer is guaranteed the deed. (Unfortunately, land contract firms often target the poor. Contracts may have a clause where the buyer forfeits their right to the deed if they miss a monthly payment. These contracts will also often require the buyer to pay for upkeep on the property.) With so many large companies snapping up real estate and driving prices higher and higher, it seems likely there's a bubble that could pop.

References:

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_contract

7 tahun yang laludiscuss

Downlink frequency is 437.025 MHz. You'll be able to download telemetry, but you won't be able to decode photos because NOAA says no.

7 tahun yang laludiscuss

The author talked about if data is "yours," but they never mention the truest form of that: ownership. If ownership of data becomes an established concept, data will fit nicely into existing legal frameworks.

If a random person could come and take tools from your garage, you would have a problem with that, since you only have one set of tools and they're expensive to keep repurchasing. The ability to make zero-cost copies of information and transmit it instantaneously for effectively free has made our relationship with information totally different than anything else in history. We can't run from it, but we can build better systems.

7 tahun yang laludiscuss

>I think it's important to distinguish between conditions which are unfortunate and conditions which are unbearable.

Ok. Some conditions created by sanctions are unbearable, and some conditions created by sanctions are unfortunate. In war, all conditions are unbearable. War is objectively worse.

>> The people of a nation are still put in a corner, but they don't have a gun to their head. It's something they can get out if, should they choose to.

>This really trivialises the challenges and discrimination economic refugees face, especially those from sanctioned countries.

It is not my intention to trivialize their situation, though perhaps that sense is lacking from my comment. What I mean is that sanctioning a nation does not mean the citizenry is forced to stand on a battlefield and die. When I say, "should they choose to," I'm referring to either seeking refuge or revolution. Both are immensely difficult tasks, but both are a choice.

One of the (stated) uses for sanctions is encouraging regime change. The US tried and failed over the last 60 years to create democratic nations by taking out the leadership of regimes. My understanding of the reason that policy failed so many times is because the people themselves didn't fight for it. The people are so controlled and government so corrupt, they have no easy way to.

Do I like sanctions? Of course not! They obviously create incredible difficulties for everyone in that country. But I'd rather suffer through hardship than die fighting for an unjust cause.

>The consequences of warfare have a much greater potential to make life unbearable for those in power. Being captured, executed or otherwise killed is a likely eventuality.

pizza used the phrase "elite," and you use the phrase "in power." If you're a political figure, you're both "elite" and "in power." The political figure (as well as any subordinate) holds the moral responsibility of waging war. They tacitly accept the risks of conviction and/or execution; incompetence is no excuse. So, yes, you're right, but war would create an even worse environment for the poor than sanctions do. I'd wager that every country in the world has special rules that come into effect when in a state of war. Those rules usually include tough rations, in order to supply the military. If the fighting is happening in that country, it would get worse once the country's means of agricultural production are wiped out.

7 tahun yang laludiscuss

Short of receiving an act of aggression challenging the sovereign of your nation, sanctions are always preferable to war. Resource starvation occurs during wartime, but, in contrast to war, sanctions mean no lives are being lost and no property is being destroyed because of physical violence. The people of a nation are still put in a corner, but they don't have a gun to their head. It's something they can get out if, should they choose to.

Also, pizza's comment is naive and misinformed. Broad sanctions on entire industries can affect the poor, yes. It also affects the people in the middle and also the people near the top! You can't fly in a private jet if 1) you can't buy one and 2) can't get fuel for the jet. Furthermore, sanctions have explicitly been used to target the wealthy and not the poor. See:

https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/s...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/06/politics/russia-sanctions-oli...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-24/trump-say...

pizza says his one of his interests is "realistic alternatives/complements to pure capitalism," which already demonstrates a misinformed notion of the world: he assumes pure capitalism exists in ANY form. It doesn't. The US is perhaps the most capitalistic society, but Social Security is quite clearly a socialist program in nature. I like Social Security and think it's highly useful, by the way (notwithstanding the storm of the decline of program revenue and increase in program participants).

7 tahun yang laludiscuss

And war doesn't?

7 tahun yang laludiscuss

Milwaukee, WI is building a Deep Tunnel project as well. It's certainly not as large as Chicago's, but the need is similar (city built on swampland). They are, after all, neighboring cities on Lake Michigan.

https://www.mmsd.com/what-we-do/wastewater-treatment/deep-tu...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sewer-diving-milw...

7 tahun yang laludiscuss

Here's the general rules of thumb I follow when deciphering a schematic/PCB:

1) Ask yourself: what's the application? What should this board be capable of doing? If you can't answer this question from the start, it's much more difficult to frame further analysis.

2) Ask yourself: what are the inputs? What are the outputs? You don't need to analyze them in detail immediately; focus on the enumeration. USB or UART? I2C or SPI? Switches or plugs? Get a model in your head (or on paper) of what protocols will be sent to and from the board.

3) Ask yourself: what are the most important elements of the board? You're usually looking for schematic blocks with lots of pins. Identify what those blocks are and what their purpose is.

4) Ask yourself: where does the energy come from? How are the board's components getting powered? If the power system doesn't work, nothing will, so it pays to understand this sooner rather than later. Enumerate the power rails. Are all rails coming from off-board, or are there power supplies on-board? If the latter, where does they get their energy from, and where does it go to?

5) Ask yourself: where do the input and output pins go to? Think of how information propagates through the board.

If you've followed these steps, you should be able to describe the functional operation of the board and understand why large components are generally connected the way they are.

Inevitably, you'll encounter smaller, "discrete" elements like resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes, transisors, ferrite beads, and more oddities which may leave you perplexed. Sometimes, these will be included as required supporting circuitry for an IC, so it may pay to dig through the datasheet and look for recommended layouts and required circuitry. Sometimes, these elements are used to improve a design in a particular way (pullup/pulldown resistors, voltage divider resistors, decoupling capacitors, debouncing capacitors, DC-filtering capacitors, and many more). I'll provide some basic ways to identify the ones I've listed above.

- Pullup/pulldown resistors: often connected to a trace carrying data. Ensures the trace isn't left in a "floating" state. One end on trace, the other on VCC (pullup) (if DC signal, will be same voltage as line voltage) or GND (pulldown). Typically ranges from 1k-10k ohms but may leave this range, depending on your requirements.

- Voltage divider resistors: a cheap way to get a lower voltage. Imagine two resistors connected in series. Something is hooked up to the connection between the two resistors. One resistor is often hooked up to VCC, and the other is often hooked up to GND. The voltage divider formula will tell you what the voltage is between the two resistors.

- Decoupling capacitors: typically located near where things are happening (input, output, IC). The idea is that they act as local energy buffers. For an IC, this means it doesn't always need to reach all the way to the battery or supply for juice; it's got some nearby. This is the "decoupling." Expect 0.1uF - 10uF values. For certain applications, different types of caps (tantalum, electrolytic, film, ceramic, etc.) may be used to improve frequency response, so keep an eye out for groups of caps of different values.

- Debouncing capacitors: usually used for cheap input devices like certain pushbuttons. One end of the cap is on the input line, and the other is connected to GND. Springiness in the input device can cause the contact to imperfectly connect and fluctuate the line voltage, creating an undesirable AC component to the signal. These caps reduce sensitivity, so you're probably going to see caps around the 10pF range.

- DC-filtering capacitors: the compliment to the debouncing cap. Often seen on antenna lines. In these situations, you care most about the signal's AC component rather than the DC. The cap will be found bridging the signal line. The specific value will vary based on your application.

Ultimately, there are many little things you'll need to learn, especially on complex boards. However, I hope this information gives you a mindset by which you can begin to approach even the most complex boards.

7 tahun yang laludiscuss

In the quoted statement, only one of those statements--"defying the laws of physics"--is perhaps beyond the purview of the military. We don't allow aircraft to willy-nilly cross borders, and neither does any other country in the world. (Border crossing is obviously permitted, but there are procedures and rules to follow. International incidents can arise when they aren't.) Also, using the example of deploying a nuclear device may be cliche, but what about a conventional weapon? Should there be any less concern about an unregulated aircraft capable of dropping explosive ordinance?

At a fundamental level, any military is tasked with guarding the land its sovereign occupies. You can't blame them for being careful because there's always the small, remote chance that an adversarial, human government could inflict harm if the military isn't looking. But that's precisely it: no one knows where these craft come from. Based on the hard information available to us the public, it's equally possible that the craft came from another galaxy, Mars, Russia, or Canada. We just don't know, and we can't just sit back and watch because there may be a legitimate threat.

7 tahun yang laludiscuss

>Maybe we need to design new audio/video formats that degrade more "artistically" when there is data loss or insufficient bandwidth.

If "art is in the eye of the beholder," then an artistic decomposition would provide inconsistent results across populations. It seems more important that the data decompose in a more repeatable and reliable way.

Idea: create a transmission format which creates specific artifacts only in the presence of certain types of interference or failure modes. The format would likely need to created on a situational basis. It seems likely that this has been created, but I've never heard of something like it.

>Is there an encoding that would naturally produce smoothed visuals without sufficient data?

You might enjoy the results of wavelet compression [1]. An image format using wavelet compression is JPEG2000 [2].

[1] https://image.slidesharecdn.com/sjbit-ncp-2013-140401124704-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelet_transform#Wavelet_comp...

8 tahun yang laludiscuss

If there's little evidence showing that the medium is affecting people positively or negatively, perhaps the key differentiator is content.

A medium is the vehicle for content, and content is dictated by the medium. However, the content you the parent or your tiny adult ingest is entirely of your own control. A parent should ensure their tiny adult is receiving that which will help them develop into healthy adults. Most people simply mimic the things they see and practices they observe, which has broad implications for the kind of content a tiny adult should ingest.

Consider this situation: there are only two shows left on the Earth: "Mister Rogers' Neighborhoood" and "Reno 911." Which show should your tiny adult watch to grow them into a healthy adult? The answer, obviously, is the former. The latter can be viewed later in life once the tiny adult has a more complete understanding of right and wrong.

8 tahun yang laludiscuss

According to [1], "[b]ecause the production of high-quality semiconductor materials was still decades away, Lilienfeld's solid-state amplifier ideas would not have found practical use in the 1920s and 1930s, even if such a device had been built."

It seems like there are parallels. Chua theorized about the memristor in the 1970s, but the first one wasn't created until the 2000s. A question I don't have the answer to: a transistor is to a vacuum tube as a memristor is to what?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor

8 tahun yang laludiscuss

Solid state non-volatile storage technologies such as NOR and NAND flash memory use something called floating-gate transistors [1]. Making these transistors is highly complex, and substantial amounts of research efforts have gone into R&D to improve NOR and NAND technologies.

A real issue with these memory technologies is wear. There is a finite amount of times a NOR/NAND gate can be written, and the implementation of wear leveling prolongs the lifespan of the memory device without solving the root issue.

Optane memory (originally called 3D XPoint) starts getting closer to the theoretical ideal of a memristor. According to [2], Optane allows a "memory cell to be written to or read without requiring a transistor." It's still not entirely sure what's the enabling technology, but the general consensus is that Optane is a form of resistive RAM, or ReRAM [3]. Not quite the memristor, but it's edging toward it.

Why memristors? Imagine you're given a piece of conductive material which changes its resistivity based on net current flow over time. It's just a chunk of material, so manufacturing memory cells goes from etching transistors to material deposition. Also, you can likely make the memristors smaller than today's transistors, meaning higher storage densities. Additionally, the memory should be bit-addressable unlike block-addressed NAND. Also, the memristor is fundamentally an analog device, meaning there's the potential for interesting innovations in storage technology (analog storage elements?). Finally, energy consumption should be even lower than transistors.

Takeaways: - NOR/NAND storage is transistor-based and will eventually be replaced with neuromorphic technologies such as memristors. - Optane storage exhibits expected properties of a memristor, but it's not quite a true memristor.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory [2] https://www.anandtech.com/show/9541/intel-announces-optane-s... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_XPoint

8 tahun yang laludiscuss

See my reply above for an explanation.

TL;DR: the reason is business, not necessarily incompetence.

8 tahun yang laludiscuss

Publishers knew about the GDPR; there was a two-year grace period before the GDPR went into effect, which ended earlier this year. No, it's a conscious choice rooted in business.

News websites make substantial amounts of money through advertising. These ads serve scripts which collect information about users. The collection of the information isn't strictly the problem. It has to do with storage and consent.

For any company operating globally, the GDPR created two zones of consideration: the EU and the not-EU. Data on EU citizens must remain on servers located in the EU, UNLESS explicit consent by the user is provided and the data is only used expressly for the purpose was intended.

Say you link up ad networks into your news website. The scripts the ad agencies include with their ads don't ask for consent when collecting data. This is standard practice across the Internet. To comply with GDPR, a news website would have two options: scrap the ad scripts, or just don't let EU citizens on the site. The not-EU has a lot more people than the EU, so building a separate site wouldn't make financial sense. As a news organization in 2018, you also need every cent you can find to stay afloat. Subscription models don't work for every site, so you still need to provide "free" access to the site by using ads.

Considering all of this, blocking the EU is often the best option for news organizations. Not all, but some.

8 tahun yang laludiscuss

You could, but it's not just the LA Times that acts this way. Many websites have engaged in this behavior because of the restrictions imposed by the GDPR. Lots of issues with the GDPR...