Software Engineers need to get involved politically and demand regulations that systems that are critical for national security be developed by residents of the US on US soil by actual people with the right qualifications.
Qualifications are an interesting one, because they seem to be something that gets very little regard the development space.
Other areas like IT security or systems/network administration have tons of different qualifications/certifications that you can take, aligned to specific roles and career paths. Whether they're actually any good is another question - but at least there is some kind of structure there. And there are some attempts being made to further formalise it, with bodies like the UK Cyber Security Council establishing a professional register and chartership status.
But I don't think I've never met a developer who's talked about any programming-related certifications that they have. I'm sure that there must be some out there, but they don't seem to be widely used or respected.
And I suspect that any attempt to formalise the industry and require people to get certified to specific standards would result in a lot of pushback.
Evolution has selected animals that, when they have access to foods with high caloric density, will gorge on them. This has been advantageous to their survival, because the history of life has been characterized by famine feast cycles for most species. Now, what UPF foods are is foods that have had most of their non-caloric content removed or been processed to increase calorie content, triggering this gorging behaviour. This is probably 80% of the obesity epidemic today. The rest is probably additives that affect our hormones that control hunger/satiety signals in the body.
In my opinion, effective regulation would control the caloric density as food as well as ban any additives that can affect hormonal hunger/satiety.
>Now, what UPF foods are is foods that have had most of their non-caloric content removed or been processed to increase calorie content, triggering this gorging behaviour. This is probably 80% of the obesity epidemic today.
It's been possible to buy prepared pure sugar (even granulated) and pure oils and fats for centuries, and eat them straight out of the container if one wished. Yet the obesity epidemic is much newer than that, and hardly anyone gorges themselves in that particular manner even today. There is clearly far more to it than "had most of their non-caloric content removed".
Honestly, that wouldn’t be a bad way to fund education: education is free, but the university gets taxation power over you so they can tax you at x% of your income. It aligns incentives better than the current system.
In which case you may like how it’s done in the UK. it’s technically debt but in essence works as a graduate tax. The government pays for your education with a loan. You then only pay back 9% of your income over a certain income threshold. You do this until you pay back the loan or 30-40 years have passed. So in practice this is a graduate tax.
For most taxes you expect higher earners to pay more but this is not the case with student loans because high earners pay of their loans quickly whereas lower earners end up paying far more in interest.
An actual graduate tax would be far less regressive than the current system
Could also have a minimum duration (for example 3 years) where you pay even if you go over the original loan amount.
That would mean people that get great paying jobs right out of college would pay more than they even borrowed, but it would be justified because the degree would likely have had a big impact if it was so soon after finishing the degree.
Even if they are only used by family members of cops, this is still nepotism and should be punished. There is no valid reason for these cards to exist. Maybe I am naïve, but I still think that the law should apply equally to everyone.
I don't even think law should apply equally. I believe elected officials and people in roles like police or in legal system should be always held to absolutely highest impossible standards.
While I tend to agree, it would mean that criminals would use it to harass cops, which would end up having the opposite effect. More corruption, instead of less.
So they should be held to the same standards as everyone else, which is a safe, sane compromise between those ends.
Not trolling or attacking, but - how would criminals use higher standards of behavior to harass police?
I don't propose to have any magic solutions or great insights, but if there's a proper series of reforms I don't see how that could make them an easier target. As for a "proper series of reforms" - mandatory body cams is on my personal short list (enshrined in law or insurance policies, but with clear and severe repercussions for incidents of not having them on), though better pay (it's harder to bribe someone who isn't having money issues), crisis and mental health training (and yes, establishing other support structures for these issues, rather than relying on police to handle them too), stricter and more streamlined disciplinary action (no more needing national outrage to get a murderer fired and charged, and no union/FOB protection for clear violations of civil rights and this new code of conduct), and whistleblower protection would all be great.
If anything, that would make police _safer_ - there will always be criminals and those who wish to do harm, in general or to those who oppose their illegal activities - but having the entire citizenry at best wary of you, and at worst hostile, does _not_ help. Policing their own and just generally "doing better" would do a lot to increase general support for the police, which would increase cooperation and reduce the chances of radicalizing citizens.
The entire discussion is very complex, and I'm just an idiot on the internet, so take this with a bucket of salt.
Thanks for reading that wall of text; have a good day.
Criminals would be looking for infractions to take cops to court with, constantly. Things that are overlooked for normal people (jaywalking) would end up with cops wasting their time in court or even jail.
Keep in mind the parent poster said "absolutely highest impossible standards."
That seems less like an argument against public officials having enhanced scrutiny, and more an argument why they should have no scrutiny at all — because that’s the only defense against such a fanciful attack. That’s the logic that brought us the abomination of qualified immunity.
> Criminals would be looking for infractions to take cops to court with, constantly. Things that are overlooked for normal people (jaywalking) would end up with cops wasting their time in court or even jail.
Maybe this just isn't a good example, but AFAIK I can't, as a private citizen, do anything about someone jaywalking, speeding, etc. That enforcement is the sole jurisdiction of the cops. So trolling cops with it is not an avenue for criminals.
And I'm hard pressed to see how enforcing these things more stringently against cops is a bad thing. Cops SHOULD be setting the example here.
That's one of the benefits of the body cams - it protects the police from false accusations while it protects the citizens from abuse.
Your point about "absolutely highest impossible standards" is valid, though I'd say that I don't actually support _impossible_ standards. I don't know what the parent poster was thinking, what you're thinking, or what _anyone_ other than me is thinking about what would be "reasonable" standards, but obviously _impossible_ standards are, well, impossible... So yes, the standards would need lots of discussion and work, that I have not put in (and am not qualified for).
As for your general point about harassment...there's a lot.
First, I don't get how your specific example of jaywalking would apply - I don't think that would be something that a random person can take another random person to court over. Ignoring that pedantic note - if the cop jaywalks while not on duty, I don't really care - treat it the same as any other jaywalking incident. If they're on duty - if they're actively pursuing a crime/criminal, or doing something else that justifies the action, fine; if a random citizen reports them, worst case should be that someone (group, really) reviews the body cam footage, and then issues either a "no this was fine" or appropriate punishment - for jaywalking, I hope that wouldn't be more than a strongly worded "try to stick to the sidewalks and crosswalks when in uniform".
In general, the jaywalking example is actually really valuable - laws that are unenforced or unequally enforced leave a huge amount of space for abuse.
So maybe that would be a good start for the standards for the police - enforce the laws that actually already exist. So if a cop, say, walks into somebody's house to update them on their search for someone who was creeping around, and then ends up shooting the person _who called the police there_ in the head, well - sounds a lot like murder, and should be pursued as such. Same for kneeling on someone's neck for, what was it, 8 minutes and 46 seconds while others stand around and watch - sounds a lot like murder and ignoring a murder going on right in front of you (while you have the ability and responsibility as a representative of law enforcement to stop it)...
Alright, that turned into...much more of a rant than I expected, sorry.
Again, thanks for reading, and the civil discussion (not sarcasm). Have a good day all.
Yeah, the weirdest part of the article was it talking about "misuse" of the cards and acting like the number of cards distributed is the problem. It wouldn't be better if each officer received one card to give to their SO or if an active NYPD badge were the only thing that got you preferential treatment—the problem is that there exists a way to signal to the officer who pulled you over that they'll get in trouble if they ticket you.
I'm sure the card started as a cute novelty, but the instant it became a signal that someone is above the law it became a problem no matter how few were in circulation at the time.
Reforestation is mostly done by tree farms to regenerate the trees they will harvest in the future. They want good sized trees that are optimally packed and easily accessible. I doubt the capability to capture carbon figures anywhere in their spreadsheet except as a number to justify demanding subsidies
This works for Steam because the Steam Deck is a low margin device they sell to ensure they can’t be shut out of their profitable business of selling games by microsoft and apple. To Steam, having a customer use the same steam deck for 10 years is not a big loss of revenue and supports their business goals. Meanwhile, Samsung making repairs cheaper means they are cannibalising the sale of new devices which is their main source of profit and growth.
I disagree that Samsung’s main source of profit and growth for their smartphone business is the smartphones themselves, at least if we zoom out to the long term. Those are commoditized hardware devices. Each new generation of phone is less compelling than the current one because the product is essentially “done,” much like a microwave or toaster.
Samsung will make more money from you if they can sell you cloud services and other ecosystem stuff, just like Apple does with their platform.
Just look at how much revenue Apple’s services business brings in as a proportion of their business, at a much better margin than hardware sales.
Services are rapidly growing as a proportion of Apple’s electronics business and I suspect that Samsung is similar if they’re playing their cards right.
There’s going to be a point where Samsung really doesn’t care if you have an old phone or not, as long as you are using Samsung services for your digital life.
Combining refrigerator, water heater and heat pump implies the need for transferring the fluid used as refrigerant between these components. This is usually a gas that is not trivial to contain, so creating this shared pipeline increases the points of failure. Further, you now have to insulate the entire length of this system, using material to do so, and you will end up losing a certain amount of efficiency anyways in this piping system. Also, what if your need in hot water is much greater than your need to cool the house or vice versa, what is your backup system for disposing of heat or cold when not required? It’s not certain that after solving all these problems and others, that you still have a net efficiency gain.
I think you could get away with two insulated reservoirs (frozen and hot water) and then use something like glycol, alcohol or water to shuttle hot and cold to your shower, under floor heating/cooling. Frozen water can be mechanically stirred (like a slushy machine) to keep it from freezing solid, allowing you to pump it through pipes. Water can also be mixed with salts or alcohol to alter it's freezing temperatures, with allow you to move cold from your freezer to the refrigerated areas (fridge, computers or living spaces). You can also use air as a working fluid. Any excess can be dumped to the outside environment with a radiator as a last resort.
Modern cars are already doing this with heat pumps to manage batteries and the cabin temperatures.
It's pretty easy to see where building technologies will go by looking at car technologies...
I like to imagine a world where it's acceptable for houses to be designed around a utility room where all of these interchanges, insulation, isolation, exhaust, issues can be contained, and accessed, in a small, separate, space that is not part of the living area.
Unfortunately it's also a world where having a problem with your aircon means your fridge stops working and replacing a fridge means calling in a technician for the plumbing.
