Interesting Links for 06-04-2016

[andrewducker]

The psychology of creepy people (tags: psychology scary ) HTC Vive review: You can now buy your own holodeck simulator v1.0 (tags: VirtualReality thefuture Technology ) PayPal withdraws from North Carolina because of new LGBT discrimination law (tags: lgbt paypal usa bigotry ) Education secretary Nicky Morgan tells students that Science is

Comments

[supergee]

Is anyone not creepy?

[bart_calendar]

To put some New York perspective on that hire driver story - this law is aimed at Uber drivers not taxi drivers

[ext_2864067]

I'm not following the reasoning there. Surely they wouldn't need to name Uber in any such law.

If that's what they want, surely they could just go for a law that essentially says, 'Any taxi hires in the city of New York without this particular license are illegal.'

Maybe they just want Uber drivers to clean up their act if they're going to operate in that area?

[bart_calendar]

They tried that and it's hung up in the courts and will be for a long time.

By far the easiest way to shut a company down in New York is to hit them with a ton of violations.

Technically Uber shouldn't be legal at all in New York, but they are arguing they are a limo but not a taxi service. And it's clear they'll appeal that up to the Surprme Court which means a decade of them operating while the legal fight goes on.

This law could get rid of them in a year or two.

[ticktockman]

I had the impression that generally the drivers aren't the medallion owners. In a separation of capital from labor, a fleet owner would buy the medallions and lease the cabs out shift by shift. That way a single cab could stay active nearly 24 hours/day.

[gonzo21]

Years ago I remember reading something about how Chinese hackers had managed to infiltrate almost the entire US system, and their initial doorway in was through hardware sales. They'd manufactured millions of chips in Chinese factories for global consumer products that all had backdoors hardcoded into them. And as these processors and memory chips made their way out into the world, into various products, some of them wound up in government computers. And slowly they got more and more access.

God knows if it was true though.

[cartesiandaemon]

...I can imagine that maybe there wasn't an existing law against flirting, but SURELY there should have been enforcement of laws against ejaculating on people :(

[lizzie_and_ari]

Yes I had the same thought. Like 'No calling people names or stabbing people. An odd coupling.

Fortunately it looks like a weird subbing choice rather than the law wording.

[cartesiandaemon]

Yeah. I guess they were trying to convey "a range of behaviour from precautionary to very serious" but it just came out sounding odd.

[cybik]

I really fucking hate Nicky Morgan and her narrow world view.

[alitheapipkin]

Yeah, I did STEM subjects at university and work in STEM and I still think that's a pile of crap. My A level history teacher taught me communication and reasoning skills that have been at least as useful to me as any of the science and maths I've learnt. And where precisely is her evidence that Arts students don't get jobs? There certainly aren't enough science jobs for everyone who studies it, and if they want everyone to work in sciences, why precisely do they keep cutting funding? Gah, ruddy Tories.

[cybik]

I totally agree. I have an arts degree and work in a school Design and Technology department, so I tend to be very angry with the whole arts versus STEM thing anyway. We need both.

[skington]

Also, earning 10% more over your lifetime is absolutely peanuts.