Re: Taking a Stand in the War on General-Purpose Computing

Re: Re: Taking a Stand in the War on General-Purpose Computing By: Mayayana to Richard Falken on Thu Mar 18 2021 10:55 pm

Car mechanics are included in the driving license exam.

Then again I don't think you are supposed to be an expert when wading through an specific field.

There is a lot of _bad stuff_ being placed in regulated products. Regulation is not a substitute for education. I sell vitamins and mineral supplements that are law compliant, but if you are not aware of your personal circumpstances you can make a mess of yourself consuming them. It is your responsibility to known if you have blood pressure problems or kidney issues and which stuff can affect you negatively. You don't need to be a vitamin expert, you need the common sense pointers.

I also happen to be an Engineer and I am not impressed with the local Edification Technnical Code. When I was in college, the guy teaching structure safety gave us a red marker and told us to cross down half of it because the code was unsuitable for buildings you didn't intend to collapse. Mostly typos and such, but those were turned into law - actually, pseudolaw, since it has been enacted by non-elected officials from a "deep state" suboffice. What this means is that if you hire any of the Engineers that got out of that class for building something, you are not relying on the regulations that mandate that buildings must not collapse, you are relying in their ability to design something that won't collapse.

To this day our consumer-grade building methods are highly appreciated, by the way.

The problem I see when regulation is priorized over education is that you end up with regulations that fall short and don't mitigate the thick of the problem but then you don't have a population capable of sorting the issues out. It is usually because the goal of the people making the regulations is more interested in making personal profit themselves than anything else.

Your argument is that the average consumer of IT is not a technical expert and must be protected via regulation. Let's assume for a moment that the only way to use certain technology safely is by having a minimum of proficency with it. What your argument looks like is: "The average consumer of $technology does not meet the minimum level of proficency for safe use, therefore we must let a regulatory organism protect them."

This is exactly like saying: "The average consumer of cars does not meet the minimum level of proficency for safe use, therefore we must let a regulatory organism protect them." My opinion is that if somebody is not able to drive a car safely, he should not be driving a car. He should be hiring somebody who knows how to drive a car or he should learn how to drive.

What he should not be doing is purchasing a car with an institutional Official Safety Seal and thinking it is ok to drive a car without having a clue about car controls. _Which is why I often find in lots of fields_ and is exactly what happens when you skip educating people. "Oh, see, this thing is CE marked so it is safe to use." No, ma'am, no necessarily.

I think that treating consumers as retards and demmanding them to be pupetted by a third party is troublesome. For one, it gives power to the third party doing the pupetteeing, which is most likely not a trustworthy agent. Then, it tells consumers that it is ok to be retards because somebody else will take care of their problems (which is lazy and often false).

I am not an _expert_ regarding all the products and services I consume, but try to know what I use and I certainly don't expect somebody else to take better care of me than myself. When I think a real expert is needed I bring one.

And by the way, I do a lot of my own home repairs and grow a lot of my own food, and need no comittee to tell me sodas suck. Besides, I think I should be taking offense because you seem to imply that if you use Unix-like systems you are a junk-food sucker with no life experience out of that.

I think the word you are looking for is infantile adj. I play with our children for example or I play guitar (but there is no much time you know) Raise children and grow up (this is live all about).

Re: Re: Taking a Stand in the War on General-Purpose Computing By: Mayayana to Richard Falken on Fri Mar 19 2021 10:46 am

I think computer users who don't know how to use a computer are a public threat.

These are the users that get their devices infected with worms and end up serving as a platform for botnets that are eventually used to trash production systems. There is a reason why certain ISPs scan for missconfigured systems and lock their connectivity. They are also the sort of people who will take a selfie in a laboratory full of sensitive secrets and then upload it to social media. Don't laugh, I have had this last one happen.

Re: Re: Taking a Stand in the War on General-Purpose Computing By: David Higton to Deloptes on Fri Mar 19 2021 08:34 pm

Conbustion engines tend not to produce meaningful ammounts of carbon monoxide unless they are badly tuned. Carbon monoxide is the signature of bad combustion and car designers and techniccians go to great lengths to ensure the combustion is any good.

Your regular coal powered power plant (which is the sort of thing a lot of countries would use to charge electric cars, if they had them in significative numbers) is more complex. If they happen to be using a bad source for fuel they are likely to produce a lot of byproducts like sulphur (in addition to the regular CO2). Nowadays this is less of a problem because they tune their fuels more carefully and also process the exhaust smoke so if does not carry as much bad stuff, but this makes all the deal all the less efficient.

There is a coal power plant not far from here, and they are always testing the environment for pollutants generated by it, and they always find them. While the argument can be made that remote power generation is more efficient than letting everybody use an internal combustion engine, results are not thrilling either.

Re: Re: Taking a Stand in the War on General-Purpose Computing By: Mayayana to Richard Falken on Fri Mar 19 2021 10:46 am

I am taking a tech point of view because I assume most people on this platform are microchipheads.

Fun fact: I was actually thinking about cooking and cooking tools too, but I didn't include it in my earlier post because it wasalready too much. But since you have brought the subject, there are lots of people using cooking implements and electrodomestics in dangerous ways, and nobody seems to be addressing this.

Here in the Hospital they nearly caused a fire because they put something with a metallic can in a microwave, for example.

I think you don't have to be an expert to understand that you don't put metal in microwaves, or use them to dry your cat after bath. However, you need to have a basic level of awareness. Electrodomestics in the EU always come with lots of disclaimers and invisible safety ingrained, but none of that matters the least if you are braindead stupid.

Fools are great at beating foolproof systems.

My horses do my gardening for me for the most part, so I let them be the experts in mowing the lawn. That only shifts the burden on my part: now instead of needing to know how to manage a lawn mower, I need to know how to make horses happy.

"Richard Falken" wrote

| > No. Only in your role as consumer. No one is expected | > to understand car mechanics. Nor is a home owner expected | | Car mechanics are included in the driving license exam. |

?? I don't know where you live. I had to drive around the block with a cop in the passenger seat, and correctly answer 7 of 10 questions like, "What does a hexagon shaped sign indicate?"

| There is a lot of _bad stuff_ being placed in regulated products. Regulation is | not a substitute for education. I sell vitamins | and mineral supplements that are law compliant, but if you are not aware of | your personal circumpstances you can make a mess | of yourself consuming them. It is your responsibility to known if you have | blood pressure problems or kidney issues and which | stuff can affect you negatively. You don't need to be a vitamin expert, you | need the common sense pointers.

That's a great example. You should understand what you're taking, but regulations can at least specify the purity of the content and ban toxic substances. Though I've read that all bets are off when you buy herbal blends. So what do we do about that? Herbs are hard to control that way. Still, that's no reason to just give up on all regulation.

| | Your argument is that the average consumer of IT is not a technical expert and | must be protected via regulation. Let's assume | for a moment that the only way to use certain technology safely is by having a | minimum of proficency with it. What your | argument looks like is: "The average consumer of $technology does not meet the | minimum level of proficency for safe use, | therefore we must let a regulatory organism protect them." | | This is exactly like saying: "The average consumer of cars does not meet the | minimum level of proficency for safe use, | therefore we must let a regulatory organism protect them." My opinion is that | if somebody is not able to drive a car safely, he | should not be driving a car. He should be hiring somebody who knows how to | drive a car or he should learn how to drive. |

That's twisting the topic in various ways. My argument is that there needs to be more regulation about what's legal for commercial entities in terms of privacy, mickey mouse licensing, and so on. You shouldn't be able to sell snake oil and you shouldn't be able to spy on people who have a reasonable expectation of privacy. It should be illegal for you to sell a history of your customers' vitamin usage. In the past that wasn't an issue, but with computerization it's become an issue.

The question of whether someone is authorized to use a device is different. Are you going to require a license to operate a TV or cellphone? In a car you might put others at risk. Not knowing that your browser or TV are spying on you is hardly a public risk.

| I think that treating consumers as retards and demmanding them to be pupetted | by a third party is troublesome. For one, it | gives power to the third party doing the pupetteeing, which is most likely not | a trustworthy agent.

I think you're taking too much an engineer's point of view. What about gardening? Cooking? You want people to be forced to have the kind of expertise you have, but that's a very abstruse kind of expertise. You're looking at it as a techie. If that makes sense then why can't a florist refuse to sell you a rose bush unless you can show that you know how to take care of it? That gets silly very quickly.

I'm not saying anything about the customer in this discussion. I'm just saying you shouldn't be allowed to sell vitamin C pills made out of chalk. That's all. The customers' ignorance should not be exploitable.

| And by the way, I do a lot of my own home repairs and grow a lot of my own | food, and need no comittee to tell me sodas suck. | Besides, I think I should be taking offense because you seem to imply that if | you use Unix-like systems you are a junk-food | sucker with no life experience out of that. |

:) Not necessarily. But there is a notable correlation. I remember seeing a photo of a Google conference table one time -- sodas in front of all and a bowl of candy bars in the middle. The Big Bang TV show works because there's a lot of truth in it. A high percentage of engineer types have a hard time with basic life.

I once knew an Apple engineer who wired his own wall light by running lamp cord from the back of an outlet. Unsafe. Illegal. But he figured he was a brilliant egineer, so he knew what he was doing. He also had a tantrum about caulking his pedestal sink. He was afraid the bowl would fall off the pedestal if it were not caulked! There was no reasoning with him. He was too brilliant for that. The same man told me his dream was to have a cellphone that would tell him what to do, so he wouldn't have to decide. And now he has his dream.

I actually had an experience of what I'm talking about just an hour ago. The woman I live with emailed something about a NYT article on how creepy facial recognition is becoming:

The link was odd. It wasn't a full URL. It was clipped, followed by a base-64 string, but with no "?". I ran the base-64 through my converter. It turned out she had forwarded an email from NYT. If I'd clicked the link it would have sent them her userID and email address, then sent me on to the article. I've seen similar links that have peoples' name and home address encoded. The average person has no chance of realizing this is happening, nor of understanding how to recognize it. The trouble is that the ease and scale of this tracking has become a problem with computerization.

Dunno. I do know what an octagon-shaped sign indicates...

yeah, it means you are following an MG car...

True true - Tesla becomes green after >200000km if all goes well and you do not replace the battery after 5y. Until then the best is diesel fuel - the one they want to ban, because it's engine is most efficient and green. I was shocked - there were studies - big studies - "they" refused to make public. Crazy!

Diesel should be banned from the face of the earth. It has killed thousands of people by pollution (particulates, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide) and continues to do so.

Also, once a diesel, always a diesel - that's the only fuel it can consume during its entire life.

Electric cars kill very few people by pollution, because the pollution that's created today in the power generation process is much diluted before it reaches humans - and as time goes on, more and more electricity is being generated from non-polluting sources, so the pollution is decreasing. Rapidly.

David

"Deloptes" wrote

| True true - Tesla becomes green after >200000km if all goes well and you do | not replace the battery after 5y. Until then the best is diesel fuel - the | one they want to ban, because it's engine is most efficient and green. | I was shocked - there were studies - big studies - "they" refused to make | public. Crazy! |

I came across this report at one point:

Not as shocking as you're indicating, but certainly questioning the "greenness" of electric. Both the battery manufacture and the source of electricity are factors.

Alright, that suffices. The rest of your post is obviously not worth looking at. There may well be subjects, you do know something about.

I take it you're attempting to deny the facts in some way.

Nitrogen dioxide kills by causing asthma attacks.

Particulates kill by lung cancer, and some other problems caused when they enter the blood stream because they're so small.

Carbon monoxide kills by causing or exacerbating heart disease.

A very recent diesel engine, in good adjustment, and with the post- treatment chemicals present and particulate filter not clogged, can give not too bad emissions. Unfortunately there are plenty of people who don't keep the above conditions true, or deliberately disable some of this stuff to get better performance and/or economy, or who are still running old vehicles that were never capable of tolerable emission levels. We all see diesels emitting black smoke as they accelerate, from time to time. All those things kill people.

The fundamental problem with diesel is the requirement for the fuel and air to mix and to burn completely, in no time flat. Complete combustion simply cannot happen under those conditions.

Electric propulsion totally avoids the problems.

David

Re: Re: Taking a Stand in the War on General-Purpose Computing By: Axel Berger to Richard Falken on Sat Mar 20 2021 01:58 pm

More like they were having and end-of-project party in a laboratory/workshop in which the secret prototypes were the size of a piano, and somebody decided to start taking selfies.

But then it is also common for reporters to visit hospitals and make recordings and taking pictures of computer rooms, when screens could be displaying sensitive information. This is why I have a no-smartphones rule near my terminals.

You are a naive fool, but it is your right to be one. I do not want to argue further on that.

Don't know if you understand German, but here:

French government and German car manufacturer did extensive research comparing the carbon and waste footprint of electric cars with diesel and benzin (gasolin) cars. The only point I agree with the naive fools is that there must be done something for the big cities. In my opinion they must be shut down anyway for living - it is inhumane. And living outside makes EVs obsolete anyway.

This is enough to close the topic.

Catalytic converters tend to clean up all partial combustion products. That's why they are fitted.

Nitrogen oxides are a direct result of pushing combustion temperatures and pressures higher in pursuit of 'green' virtue signals - increased mileage per gallon/litre.

We would all like to have a 1000 mile range electric car that cost less than a diesel, and didn't pollute the environment more than a diesel car by dint of the mining needed to create the battery...

...but obviously in the land of green virtue signalling, pushing the pollution out of your suburb onto a starving african kid crawling out of a cobalt mine, is virtue of the highest order.

Oh and according to the Gospel according to Michael Mann, it doesn't matter where you emit carbon dioxide, the final effect on civilization is the same.

Most of the windmills built use more coal to build - mainly in china - than would be burnt to generate the same amount of electricity they generate, over a remarkably short lifetime.

It is clear from the fact that no high visibility virtue signalling climate change devotee has ever sold a beachside mansion in 'danger of sea level rise', or private jet, that they they don't believe it either.

Its not science. Its *marketing*.

If they happen to be using a bad source for fuel they

So many people cannot afford highly taxed fuel and 'renewable' electricity that they are now burning coal and wood instead. I thought I would never smell high sulphur coal burnt on an open grate again.

Spectacular own goal

If the greens had their way, we would all be poisoned from the toxic by products of burning pixie dust and unicorn farts

Nuclear power would fix the electricity generating issue. At a far lower cost than 'green' energy.

But yes, battery manufacture is a problem of pollution.

I visited a lead smelting plant once - they also were France's major recycler of car batteries - "Dont park your car there" "Why not" "that's sulphuric acid dripping off that structure"

Very green.