whyrat @ whyrat @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

So if the difference is corporate consolidation... Sounds like that's the real underlying issue then, not automation.

Economics has well established that monopolistic behavior by firms harms consumers & the overall economy (that's why we have anti-trust laws in the first place).

Don't conflate the one problem with another, as I agree the erosion of anti-trust laws is a bad thing and needs to be reversed. But that doesn't mean firms further automating things is now also bad.

I'd also say "automation affecting the whole economy at once" isn't unique. The industrial revolution was not isolated to one industry, its effects were economy-wide. Also true for the transportation revolution (trains & steam boats moved everything), telecommunications, and the internet...

If you're not aware, look up the automation paradox: https://ideas.ted.com/will-automation-take-away-all-our-jobs/

Every* automation advancement has lead to an increase in employment, not decrease. Most often jobs in the immediate sector are lost, but the rise in supporting sector jobs are bolstered.

Classic examples are the cotton mill and combine harvester. The number of agricultural workers declined, but the number of jobs processing agricultural product increased. Or with ATMs, the number of tellers needed per bank location decreased, but the total employment in the banking sector increased (banks opened more branches, namely in places where it was previously cost prohibitive).

As more things are automated, what's being automated becomes cheaper and more prolific, often increasing (or creating) new opportunities. There are so many historic examples of this, it's hard to justify "this time is different" predictions... Even for things like AI automating white collar jobs.

*Edit: almost every. It depends a bit on how you count the secondary jobs, and where those are located (automation combined with offshoring results in a net decline in some countries, but increase overall).

Check out Fez if you haven't already. Also Tunic does a great job of starting out basic & breaking precedent.

Hackers and hobbiests will persist despite any economics. Much of what they do I don't see AI replacing, as AI creates based off of what it "knows", which is mostly things it has previously ingested.

We are not (yet?) at the point where LLM does anything other than put together code snippets it's seen or derived. If you ask it to find a new attack vector or code dissimilar to something it's seen before the results are poor.

But the counterpoint every developer needs to keep in mind: AI will only get better. It's not going to lose any of the current capabilities to generate code, and very likely will continue to expand on what it can accomplish. It'd be naive to assume it can never achieve these new capabilities... The question is just when & how much it costs (in terms of processing and storage).

The reality of Texas green energy is so detached from the political rhetoric from politicians... The state making the most wind energy has leaders in the capital demonizing it while the state finances (and citizens) clearly benefit. I wish the voters of Texas paid more attention and called out such obvious gaslighting :(

https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/01/13/cost-raising-child

Usually these costs are including education and childcare. In the US you can easily expect to pay around $1K / Month for full time child care between the ages of 6 months and 5 years (when they'll start public school). Here's a recent summary for major cities in Texas reflecting that amount: https://tootris.com/edu/blog/parents/child-care-in-texas-can-cost-up-to-10000/

That's over $40K just in childcare costs before entering school. Now, many people don't have to pay this because they have family (or a non-working spouse) who assist; but from a cost perspective it's fair to include.

Add on to that food, clothing and such... between ages it's easy to see how some estimates can reach over $200K through age 18.

This is great momentum; especially if it helps down ballot Colin Allred defeat Ted Cruz for the senate. Some polling has him within 5 points (or even tied in a few polls earlier this year). It's a bit of a stretch; but Texas is notorious for it's low voter turnout. Moving a few % of this non-voting population to feel like their vote matters & get them to show up would be enough to shift these races!

VIX under 20 isn't a warning... The stock market valuation indicator I agree with: stocks are a bit over valued right now. But over valued just means we need a correction... not whether it will be a mild or severe one.

What's more troubling is the market reacting already to nonsense trump comments. From the caption in the linked article:

The latest market sell-off was partly triggered by former President Donald Trump's comments on Taiwan and tariffs.

Does no one else remember the dumpster fire that was the markets jumping at every comment and policy flip-flop during his four year term? The same volatility indicator (VIX) regularly jumped over 20 after some dumb trade policy comment...

I guess we get used to all the announcements being "Biden-Harris" now?

The fact that everything was a dream was kind of the point for Alice in Wonderland... no? It wasn't a twist at the end, it was clear she was descending into a dream as she followed the white rabbit. It was all about how dreams don't have to make sense.

Your vote is sending a signal to future elections. If Ohio has a 20-point red margin, it's unlikely to get any attention from blue candidates. If it has a 5% margin, that changes, and suddenly the next campaign considers spending time & money to try and move the needle.

Remember the old Roman adage: "you're not defeated until you admit defeat". If you don't vote: you've lost. If you vote, you might still lose that election but there's a better chance to win in the future.

Both strengthening relations with Russia recently too.

Reference Modi's recent trip to Moscow: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd91pe5r9go

And that about half of voters still back the party doing it...

A bit of an elaboration on why water towers are used in combination with pumps. Pumps are great for moving a constant amount of water around at whatever rate the pump is designed for (e.g. a small pump will move something like 1 gallon per minute). a big enough pump (or series of smaller pumps) can cause that pumped water to consistently flow at that rate.

The problem is that people don't use water at a constant rate. In the morning, several residents probably all run the shower at the same time. if too many people open the water tap at the same time, a pump will give each just a fraction of what they expect.

But a water tank high up supplies water by gravity, you could open a large number of water taps, and as long as the pipes from the tank are big enough they'd all have the same pressure as if just one opened.

The water is gradually pumped up to the tank no matter if people are using it or not, then when many people want water, they all get it at expected pressures and the tank start to empty. Eventually people close the taps, the tank will slowly start to fill again from the pump.

This same basic design is also how water towers supply water to many single story buildings, it's not a unique engineering feat for skyscrapers, but an adjustment to fit somewhere within the building's footprint.

If you want a fun karaoke night, first song(s) need to be something that will get most everyone singing. Younger crowds: something like Tayor Swift "Shake It Off". Middle age crowds, something like Nirvana or Aerosmith. Older crowds any Beatles #1.

I personally like Cyprus Hill "Jump Around" if you're willing to learn it well enough beforehand as to not butcher the lyrics. I've seen Vanilla "Ice Ice Baby" also get a similar reaction of everyone knowing the song and enjoying it enough to give you kudos for choosing it.

After everyone's over the initial hesitation, go belt all your love songs and power ballads; but get the party started first.

This article links to the London School of Economics summary, which includes the graphs and goes a little deeper: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2024/06/07/the-rural-urban-political-divide-is-mostly-driven-by-white-voters-and-there-are-fewer-divisions-over-policy-than-many-think/

Here's the core image highlighting the differences: https://blogsmedia.lse.ac.uk/blogs.dir/58/files/2024/06/Brown-Fig-4.png

For those not keeping up: this is the fallout from Erdogan ignoring economics and keeping interest rates low for years; only in the past year or so having conceding to reality and finally letting rates rise. They'll likely continue suffering fallout from his prior stance on interest rates for the remainder of the decade.

From last summer:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/22/economy/turkey-hikes-interest-rates/index.html

and

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/14/turkeys-erdogan-agrees-to-monetary-policy-turnaround-under-simsek.html

Since the other reply was unhelpful: apps are supposed to have limited privileges and isolation from each other, yes... But the whole point of malware like this is that they figure out ways to break those restrictions and get escalated privileged.

You can get more technical detail from reading the report, in this case it looks like the app does not contain malware, but instead requests an update after install that contains the bad code and then breaks the app limitations and scans for the target banking applications and copies the security certificates.

Chex mix is a classic!