The real with prediction markets problem is that people can make bets, then alter outcomes to match those bets. This is a well-known issue in sports betting (e.g. taking a fall), and I don't see how we're going to prevent it for things that matter a whole lot more than sports.
Also, a bet in these markets can be used to alter outcomes. That problem is caused by journalists reporting on market activity. It is treated (or percieved by readers) as if it reflects popular sentiment. Not only is it possible, it's actually relatively cheap to do things like corner the market, which in some cases is a lot less expensive than, say, a national TV ad campaign or running a scientific poll. Link to an older article: https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/dont-trust-the-politi...
One of the authors is a retired general, so he probably knows a bit more than us internet randos. Still, the last paragraph says: "The lesson of the Iran campaign is that the F-35 performed superbly in exactly the kind of fight it was built for." I feel like it's hard to gainsay the utility of the F-35 when it's useful in a real war we're actually in.
The author's main argument against the F-35 is that it can be easily destroyed on runways now, as drones and missile developments have outpaced missile defense, leaving the US and US allies vulnerable to a preemptive strike by China.
That might be true, but it's also strategically valuable to diminish the military capabilities of allies of China (e.g. the Iranian theocracy), which may make up for the tactical weaknesses of the F-35 against China in a direct confrontation. It's also possible that drone/missile defense will catch up (e.g. lasers), but that's hard to say at this point.
I wish this announcement weren't infused with intersectionality.
"Your abortion fund uses TikTok to spread crucial information" is listed as one of three sample reasons you might use social media.
I support reproductive rights! But I don't want EFF to do that, and I don't want EFF to push conservatives out of the movement. I want EFF to appeal to everyone who cares about digital civil liberties, including people who disagree with me on other issues.
I think the sort of person who sees any mention of a user having an abortion fund as evidence that the EFF wants "to push conservatives out of the movement" is going to see everything as infused with intersectionality.
You've leapt to such a strong conclusion on the basis of so little evidence.
> I want EFF to appeal to everyone who cares about digital civil liberties, including people who disagree with me on other issues.
An EFF that refuses to use any word that you might one day see as related to intersectionality would not be able to do this.
I am extremely pro-abortion. I think that "pro life" laws infringe on the basic human right to bodily autonomy, and threaten to criminalize miscarriage.
I am also aware that many people don't agree with me on this issue, but may agree with me on the importance of digital civil liberties.
When listing three example reasonable uses of social media, I feel EFF chose a needlessly divisive example, due the misguided notion that every good organization should support every good cause.
I want religious conservatives to support digital civil liberties, but if we insist on making it a "package deal" with stuff they don't support, we drive them away.
> You do need constant, reliable power, as even a brief interruption makes a huge mess when the aluminum/slag freezes in the processor
On the other hand: it has a gigantic thermal mass. Combine this with the energy requires to melt it, and you end up with molten aluminium being trucked over our highways [0]. A brief interruption isn't a big deal when it takes ages to solidify.
Iceland is a tiny country with unusual amounts of energy. Not all renewable sources are the same -- hydropower is fairly reliable too, for example -- but Iceland is just not a useful example for the whole world. The largest geothermal plant in the world by far is in California, but it's a small portion of our total energy use so no one cares. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geysers
You can locate an aluminum plant pretty much anywhere you want, as the energy required to make aluminum is large compared to the cost of mining/shipping bauxite. This solves the main problem with geothermal, which is that it's in random locations around the world that don't necessarily have many people living there.
Any place with significant volcanic activity (e.g. Hawaii) could probably do geothermal power if they wanted to.
Hawaii did do geothermal, but in fact it's so geothermically active their main geothermal plant went offline for a while because lava got shot up their boreholes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puna_Geothermal_Venture
The energy (electricity) they use to smelt aluminium mainly comes from hydropower, around 70% of it. The geothermal boreholes are mainly used for district heating, which is quite a big energy drain in Iceland. And that means that geothermal is the source of around 65% of the energy used in Iceland.
Unfortunate that JG is the fall guy for Siri. He was very successful at Google (e.g. BERT was published just after he left), but it looks like he wasn't able to save Apple from itself.
Some of the teams that Giannandrea oversaw will move to Sabih Khan and Eddy Cue, such as AI Infrastructure and Search and Knowledge. Khan is Apple's new Chief Operating Officer who took over for Jeff Williams earlier this year ... Apple CEO Tim Cook thanked Giannandrea ...
Seems like Khan is preparing the mothership for when he eventually assumes the CEO role from Cook.
Is anyone willing to explain to me how Google is a monopolist in advertising? There are other online advertising platforms, and publishers can and do sell adds directly to advertisers.
"Monopoly" does not mean "one and only vendor of XYZ good/service that exsits ever"
Monopolies can exist when there is technically still competition. Being a monopoly does *NOT* mean you've destroyed all other competitors or that you are literally the only entity in the entire universe offering a good or service.
Whether an entity represents a monopoly is a subjective measure. It is *NOT* a binary true/false based on trivially observable data. It mostly comes down to how the entity behaves with regard to competitors. Principally, using unfair and uncompetitive pricing and sales strategies, egregious lock-ins, and using your market-dominant position to force competitors and consumers to operate in certain ways.
The fact that other ad markets exist at all does not disqualify google from being a monopoly.
> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power.
...except that he is definitely wrong about the targeting aspect as well. Almost all of the people hit by the pager explosions were legit military targets. In the videos of the explosions, you can see people unharmed who were standing within meters of the targets. It was one of the most well-targeted anti-terrorist strikes in history.
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