L1News: 2017-04-11 Communist Toilets and Dudley Do-Wrongs | Level One Techs

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://level1techs.com/video/l1news-2017-04-11-communist-toilets-and-dudley-do-wrongs
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Apple has been doing the suggest emoji since last summer. I don't think they send it back to apple to be processed like Facebook will but FB could be doing to compete.

So with the new creators update Cortana can only be disabled by renaming a folder.

My issue is I've done that in the past and two issues happen.

One, the search function is tied to it (which is garbage unfortunately) so whenever you open the start menu the search function doesn't work.

Two, (this is more anecdotal) I've noticed a weird performance penalty, I'm assuming windows is trying to constantly start the process but because it can't it just keeps attempting.

If anyone has a way to disable Cortana without the performance issues that would be great. Mainly because I'm interested to see how the gamer update changes performance.

Cheers.

There's been a few benchmarks around already, bottom line is... it doesn't all that much.

About the IoT Garage door (not considering this is stupid in the first place), is it even legal to brick this thing because of a negative review? Granted his language was a little rude but he still bought the thing. How can they just disable it legally...

And how'd they even get the corresponding device ID in the first place? Does Amazon register serial numbers with their customers now and shares them with the company? If they were bought first hand OK fine, but through Amazon?

@15:25 in the video...

Once upon a time back in 1999, Steve Job's actually endorsed PlayStation emulation on Mac computers at MacWorld:

Time stamp: 1:24:01

Here is another thing to think about with emulation.... Practically ever single DOS-era game that is sold on GOG is packaged with DOSBox, same goes for many of the DOS games on Steam too. DOSBox is an open source emulator that gets used all the time when repackaging and reselling old DOS software.

Variations on MAME (an arcade emulator) get redistributed with arcade classics re-releases too.

But with some of these console emulators, the licensing can be a little weird on them and they can't actually be resold. The reason why we don't see more SNES , Sega Genesis, Playstation compilations from third party developers is because most of the emulators out there just aren't under very good grounds when it comes to finding an emulator that can be redistributed legally. Sometimes these problems can come from different parts of code written by different people over the years that use their own licenses.

These bigger publishers usually farm development out to smaller groups that make their own original emulators from scratch. But I have heard lots of stories of developers using ROM's that they find online instead of ripping their own.

@wendell what's up with the screws on the desk?

Last week there where 3, now 2. What could it mean???

:confused:

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Given that Youtube ad revenue has all but dried up, what motivation is there for content creators to use Youtube?

I guess that discovery is just about the only motivator right now.

Many of the gun channels are using Full30 a dedicated firearms content creators distribution network.

Should there be a dedicated tech platform like Full30? Should L1 be self-hosting? Looking alternative platforms for the videos?

All of those porn sites get their videos hosted at a cost effective price! Sure as heck L1 should be able to get a good deal somewhere. Heck talk to Allan Jude at Scales Engine if memory serves all of that data he talks about hosting and storing is "video" content. wink wink nudge nudge... He hosts the videos for Jupiter broadcasting at Scale.

There is the Miro system for content creators to self-publish. I'm not sure how many users Miro has but it's free service and software so if it works there is no harm in using it.

Brian Lunduke had an interesting discussion with Jeremy Kauffman from lbry.io. Could this be a potential distribution and revenue generating system.

If all you want to do is get content out for the users of the forum then there is nothing stopping L1 from using BitTorrent.

It is not beyond the wit of man to get the videos and podcasts out there. Keep on plugging the store and Patreon and what revenue there is will come in that way.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed.

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Honestly in the long run I think this is a good move. it pushes content creators to become independent and no longer rely on ad revenue. It could really promote Community involvement and diversification of both audience and revenue sources.

Revenue thus will no longer rely just on view numbers and subscribers which can easily be tricked etc. Instead it depends on people directly supporting the content creators. Now granted smaller channels with small audiences will have a harder time initially but they anyway wouldn't have benefited from ad money.

It's a bit like youtube is going back to 2005 in terms of its content & ad model.

Regarding the economic impact of robots taking over the labor in production:

It would probably be best to distinguish finance from economics; to begin with. There really is a large difference; considering that there is little to no economy in finance. The axioms in finance are more political constructs rather than an economizing methodology for acquisition and distribution.

This results in flux in the economies if nation states. This is because it produces an unsustainable upward trajectory with respect to a growth imperative that serves the purpose of competitive advantage over other nation states. This is a toxic aspect of global "economics". It's referred to as the crisis cycle.

Technological advancement has produced a long lived trend of what Ray Kurzweil calls "the law of accelerating returns". This is in essence more frequent transactions. This is brought about by a rising standard of living, ease of access in advancements, like from snail mail to e-commerce... things like that. This also has a side effect of bringing about more frequent crises. The crisis cycle has had incrementally shorter intervals throughout recorded history to today. It's unprecedented that people who were alive during the previous collapse are seeing this level of aggregation and instability. This is the time where people are capable of seeing two collapses in their life times. Depending upon the steepness of the grade it could be three or more collapses in a lifetime.

This is what we are looking at in the coming decades. We have such easy access that it promotes aggregation at an accelerated rate. This is probably to follow the exponential curve plot that technological advancement appears to be following. At some point the crises will come so quickly that the system will self deprecate. This is what is referred to as being driven into extinction.

There is a sci-fi author by the name of Calum Chase that has a pretty interesting book called "The Economic Singularity". His thoughts are a little muddled; as he doesn't really have much of a background in behavior or sociology; but he does have a lot of insight to share.

Ray Kurzweil seems to think that there will be a combination of currency systems and open access. Ray also has no background in behavior or sociology.

If there is one thing that we can count on, it's that when there is uncertainty about the function of vital systems, there will result a default (evolutionary predisposed) behavior. It's probable that distributed systems will self-organize as the current systems become obsolete. I wouldn't exactly call this a singularity; as it is expected; and thus in essence the opposite; but by Vinge's definition, no one really knows where it will lead... in discrete instances.

It's difficult to say where it will lead as it's dependent upon factors that can't be known to us now; like emerging technologies, scientific discoveries, environmental changes, the possibility of nuclear apocalypse etc. etc.. There is however a framework for statistical risk management in the axioms provided in the overarching system. I suspect that economics is due to become more scientific... due to increases in risk. This is because of the influence of self preservation and the possibility of ecological collapse.

All in all, I doubt that anyone can say "this is what economics is going to look like in 20-30 years".

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On emulation ban:


As for Apple and emulation (my most recent understanding of their AppStore license):

Apple rules are not so much focused on preventing developers from delivering a game running in a virtual machine/emulator - instead, the explicit ban on Apple Store is on delivering apps which can change their behavior after they have passed the AppStore review. This includes any general emulator, or any program but only such an emulator or a program which can download another program and run it outside the JavaScript of the Safari/WebKit/webView component jail/"safe environment". Implementing a programming language interpreter is a special case and is allowed for as long as it does not download any code to execute. The code must be present during the app review process, and/or typed in by the interpreter app user.

What happens if your app changes behavior if it fails to download a picture resource and thus does not show a button because (for example) the button size is conditioned on an online resource not being null? Apple says nothing about this, and avoids the subject altogether - most apps will change their behavior and layout to some degree based on a central server. Chat and Social network apps particularly so.

Under Apple rules I can still deliver a game (or possibly a set of 10 NES games) on an emulator app, except that I must pass a review for the game through the AppStore.

TLDR:
Apple prohibits Turing-complete interpreters that can download and execute downloaded code being distributed on AppStore. Instead, the code must be locked down at the AppStore review, and further only modified by the user, and/or app-updates which also pass AppStore reviews.


Note: If you are an enthusiast, you can build a monster (or compile an open source monster) to your iPhone for your personal use. It will probably break each time Apple releases a new update, though (and soon you probably won't have the option to not update). Since a year or two back, this is cost free. Except you need to run Xcode. On Mac OS. On Mac hardware. Which needs to be fairly recent to run a fairly recent Xcode, which requires a fairly recent Mac OS version. And that recent hardware costs lots of money. (if you didn't notice, that was a chained implication, something Apple does a lot to Apple developers, and this was a short one compared to some of the worse I've seen)


Now to compare with Microsoft emulation clause, I am able to read their exact wording:

Apps that emulate a game system are not allowed on any device family.

as more similar to what Apple is going for.

I.e. not necessarily as a ban on specifically bundling a game or a set of games executing on an emulator, i.e. releasing an emulated game, but I can also instead read it as a ban on apps that deliver emulation of "any game" for a system (unlimited), as opposed to "one specific game" for a system (limited). Perhaps another game can be had as a DLC. Steam already does this with their SEGA classics, for example.

Just saying I am able to read it his way, and the L1News also seem to have caught on this possible nuance of interpretation.


A speculation on Microsoft emulator aversion:

The cause to being emulation averse here could be the economic model where hardware (smartphone, console), and even software (Mac OS, Windows) only act as locking mechanisms to particular money channel / App store. You don't make money making hardware or OS any more (just like you don't make money making a printer), but you make money tying people to the money channel.

Now, an interesting tangent is, as of recently I have come over unverified but believable information that apps are now (since 2016) competing with each other for user time, as opposed to just taking more of user time. In short, smartphone users have been allegedly pushed to the edge regarding screen-time, and won't go further. If true, preventing general emulators from an app store also seems a peculiar reaction to this new matter of facts.

Because, that would mean that an App store system can be made obsolete by emulators, just like Windows App store system can be made obsolete by Steam. Steam has pushed for Linux in a move probably designed to avoid this anticipated head-on collision.

Most of the money-channel companies are aware of the competition and the current trend seems to be to lock-in consumers. To me, this is a sign of a business model way past its expiration date, or at least well overstaying its welcome - and it is intriguing that it has only existed for such a short time. @GFX_Garage expands on this subject (i.e. economics) much better in the previous post, though.


Pray, what would happen if you only used your smartphone's OS to run your own emulated and/or simulated VM with all the stuff you wanted to have instead of all the stuff the money leeches want you to attach to you, yet using their infrastructure to do it?

Sally: The robot that perfectly tosses your salad.

I'll go now.

i was gonna ask what is happening with Youtube ad revenue when they mentioned it. Even if it was going up google would take the largest cut and individual people would get bread crumbs. Also YT suffers from Copyright trolls way too much. So it's probably for the best for people to move elsewhere.

It is worth saying that mac address' on ethernet cards are not always unique. They do get reused. Also some vendors have apparently in the past used the same ranges for network devices shipped to different regions.

I've run into matching mac address' twice on computers and another time where some shitty chinese phone had a mac address that matched a servers broadcom gigabit network card(I blame that on the phone). It is very rare though.

Now a mac address along with a processor id on the other hand..........

Also on the emulator front. They don't have issues with a program using emulation, I'm guessing they have had multiple versions of legacy games play on their systems via it. They have an issue with third party emulators that are open to using pirated roms. But like rare using an emulator to play their own classic games(not sure if they are using emulation for the older games or not)? MS will not care.

You know what's really scary?

MS could co-locate systems with their mac address logging very easily.
Read local machines Mac + PID combine with ARP cache records or just log incoming packet MAC's.
Now combine info from those machines on your backend and you probably have a whole Bio on an entire household.

The main problem is not the economic impact, it's the socio-economic impact.
We can probably loose a few industries.
We went from architectural, to manufacturing, to service/knowledge industry.
The foremost impact is going to be manufacturing going to go away a lot. And some of the service industry as well.

My bet is the next economic direction we will take will be:
- customization, where people still translate between desire and machine.
- more art and entertainment
- personal (mental/body) development industries

But as we replace more and more workers, at some point, you just have to give in to socialism and universal income.
If you don't, you will have civil unrest as never seen since the unionisation, beheading in France, ...

Many people think that the only solution to tech unemployment is socialized (public sector) employment. This is much more likely to be operant conditioning than system modeling. It's minimalist change; in that it only addresses the loss of the 5/40 job market... and people expect that the leaders solve it for them. Human perception is economy of a perception of normative appeal and a small amount of novelty. UBI fits that bill. The problem is that it doesn't account for evolutionary predisposition. Impulse is upwards of 90% of human behavior; and is rarely accounted for in political discourse.

Before the "2nd" industrial revolution, there was little to no employment. The passing down of agricultural technologies to the populous resulted in the family farms. The industrial revolution was a problem back then because of food production concerns. Technology came to the rescue then too.

For instance abolition coincided with the advent of the barn engine, cotton gin and tractor. A working tractor existed before the end of the Civil War. Here in 2017, illegal aliens pick our potatoes and oranges. Ethnic exploitation is still alive and well in the US; because the law only prohibits slavery specifically. This is a factor that one needs to consider when addressing what is essentially socialized employment.

There are a lot of factors that need to be considered. Large numbers of solutions are more likely to play a part than just one. The impending ecological collapse can only be avoided by fundamental change in energy and food production. The open source and maker movement is more prominent than support for UBI. The crisis cycle would still effect a basic income based society. The global economic phenomenon of the growth imperative would still exist; as it is a product of competing, sovereign nation states. This means that the accelerated aggregation of wealth would eventually tap into the funding for basic income; without additional solutions.

UBI could play a roll as a temporary buffer, however the socioeconomic system is one that self-organizes beyond our political prowess. The factors that shape it are not political; though the politicians take credit. The sosioeconomic system is reorganizing as we type; due to the natural variation in the endeavors of individuals.

We live in a different world than the one that produced the Bastille. Post Adam Smith Socioeconomics appreciates the value of distributed systems.

There is a huge difference between observations an perceptions. Perceptions can be the product of misrepresented conditions. Political discourse is full of misrepresented conditions.

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AFAIK, that's part of the original ideas behind UBI.

You eventually reach a point where "income" becomes sort of obsolete as a concept.

It is a partial transition to a potentially different economic structure. That implies a transition period.

UBI could just as well be a precedent that leads to decentralisation of social, economic and political structures.

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That's my take.

What concerns many people, including myself is the time between now and tech unemployment; and the time between now and fundamental economic change. There could be a little lag with the adaptation of new types of entrepreneurship. This is the operant conditioning that I"m referring to. I'm not sure how quickly the populous will respond to the ques. On the same note though, I'm pretty sure that almost everyone will find something useful to do when unemployed. That's an evolutionary predisposition as well.

I saw something disturbing in the Post not long ago. "relieve poverty and cushion the effects of economic dislocation without encouraging idleness and sloth"

It makes me wonder what types of "incentives" they are cooking up for control measures under UBI. This concerns me because the governing structure would control access. On the same note however, the populous would likely respond by creating access with crowd tech that exists now. This probably suggests that UBI isn't sustainable, though temporarily useful.

Technology, namely data analysis has pretty much been sufficient enough to solve the trade problem with barter for the past 100 years. Now it's more than sufficient to obsolete trade systems all together. The problem with implementing it is with the autonomy that will not only be required but also demanded. Prefab social systems are having a great deal of difficulty gaining traction; because they just don't make sense. The Venus Project was put in the limelight by Zeitgeist and now Zeitgeist is politically polarized. This is probably because of operant conditioning as well. I wouldn't expect more than small contributions from either project.

The decentralized models are having a great deal of success though. Open source is kind of new model for gift economics. It might have a lot of influence; provided that a more coherent model for accounting emerges. This essentially means a large number of people working on it.

I guess it's time for "the economists in the audience" to pick up the glove :slight_smile:

The truth is automation isn't in itself that different from other processes of technological innovation. Even a fully automated economy (which isn't granted by current events) would be relatively easy to understand, and we could have many versions of such economy depending mostly on property rights and the wealth distribution. Despite seeming a disruptive, game-changing development, it isn't really that special, nor should we fear it more in economic terms than any other process of innovation. It's a topic that deserves a lengthy discussion that probably exceeds a forum post, but the TL;DR is that part of the apocalyptic views stems from a failure to distinguish partial equilibrium effects from general equilibrium results. While partial effects are more easily perceived by non-economists, general equilibrium logic comes with a bit of training in economics. There is a classic article by Paul Krugman explaining the differences between businessmen and economists (link: https://alvaroaltamirano.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/krugman_a-country-is-not-a-company.pdf), which applies to other non-economists as well.

However, part of the concerns are not spurious. While a well-functioning economy full of robots is easy to outline (and it's actually an excitement prospect), the hardship is in the transition towards said economy. To make an analogy, having a lot of robots is no worse than having a lot of trains, but the process of expanding railroad transportation in the XIX century did open many wounds, albeit transitory from an historical perspective, that were very real for those alive at the time. Moreover, how the transition is carried out can shape which version of the automated economy we get.