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And, the genius of Uber is:

- people enjoy driving, so it doesn't feel like work, so why not get "paid" even if it's barely break-even for the risk and actual expenses for doing something you enjoy?

- people are stupid about what they call "sunk costs" - your car is only a sunk cost if you are never going to replace it, tires wear by the mile, as do timing belts, alternators, water pumps, and all the other things that are going to need service before you send the car to the junk heap. Even the window seals and other things not normally serviced wear faster when exposed to driving as opposed to being parked, particularly if you park in a shelter.

What's missing from the above analysis is also "- people learn from experience" and "- people aren't going to get out of bed, if their cut of the action is too low."

Let's consider that first bullet point. People learn from experience. I doubt, for example, that JoeMerchant learned of the many costs of car ownership from a class or via hearsay. Similarly, how is one to learn the many niggling details of the cost of being their own employer (or an employer of others!), if they never experience it?

It's no secret that Uber has massive turnover, in part due to the heavy competition by drivers who are not fully clued in. So what? That's thousands of drivers who each year will learn what competition and costs mean at low cost to the rest of us (we get a lot of cheap rides out of this, remember?). And as bonus, they'll get a piece of JoeMerchant's hard-earned tax dollars and we get a quality bellyache from a guy who wouldn't have cared in the least otherwise, if Uber weren't somehow peripherally involved.

Let's consider another example which occasionally is seen in universal basic income (UBI) arguments. When people don't have to work, they'll instead pour their time into hobbies which somehow will be better for us than the work would be. We'll get like one or two orders of magnitude more awesome guitar solos. That surely more than compensates for having fewer people who actually know how to do stuff that keeps societies functioning, right?

That's also ignoring that most peoples' hobbies will be watching porn and other push media on the internet.

How does one learn to manage their time, or manage other people, if they never do it? The nuts and bolts of particular industries? How to help people? The huge thing missed is that all this work has created a huge population of people who know what they are doing. Take it away and you take away the competence as well.

Exclusive: Next Generation AMD Mobility 7nm CPUs Landing In Q1 2020, Will Bring AMD Gaming Laptops Price Down To $699

So here is what AMD has planned next: An AMD gaming laptop, equipped with a Ryzen 5 CPU, complete with discrete graphics, starting from $699. While I do not have confirmation of the exact specification, I do know this pricing is being based on a 7nm Ryzen part with 6-cores along with a dGPU (the Radeon RX 5300M/5500M potentially) and will go up against the Intel Core i5-8265U + GTX 1050 setup. This represents a serious level of gaming performance in the mobility segment and the GTX 1050 could be called the starting point of a true gaming laptop. That said, AMD is clearly pursuing the thin, light and fast ideology while offering good gaming performance.

Interesting, but still skippable. I want to see 8 cores (matching consoles), AV1 decoding (unclear what kind of GPU or version of Video Core Next will be used), and at least 1 GiB of L4 cache (compare to the just cancelled Core i7-8809G which has 4 GiB of HBM on the same package as the CPU and "discrete" AMD GPU).

Free speech is a bedrock value in this country. But it isn’t the only one. Like all values, it must be held in tension with others, such as equality, safety and robust democratic participation. Speech should be protected, all things being equal. But what about speech that’s designed to drive a woman out of her workplace or to bully a teenager into suicide or to drive a democracy toward totalitarianism? Navigating these trade-offs is thorny, as trade-offs among core principles always are. But that doesn’t mean we can avoid navigating them at all.

There's plenty wrong in the essay, such as conflating words and deeds, or assuming that evil would be stopped, if only we kept the perpetrators from being able to speak out. But I think this covers the core faults of the essay in this short paragraph.

The first and most glaring one is discounting "core principles" because they occasionally conflict with other core principles. This isn't some magic discovery. We've known for centuries about such conflicts. What he doesn't get is that the reason freedom of speech is so absolute in the US is because any exceptions are so easy to game and create much bigger problems than the conflicts they're supposed to resolve. Consider his proposed solutions:

Congress could fund, for example, a national campaign to promote news literacy, or it could invest heavily in library programming. It could build a robust public media in the mold of the BBC. It could rethink Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — the rule that essentially allows Facebook and YouTube to get away with (glorification of) murder. If Congress wanted to get really ambitious, it could fund a rival to compete with Facebook or Google, the way the Postal Service competes with FedEx and U.P.S.

The executive branch and its political appointees would get to decide what "news literacy", "library programming", "decency", and "robust public media" are (currently, that's the Trump administration, folks). And creating a heavily subsidized, monopoly provider for social media and web search is begging for the jackboot of tyranny to step in. It's remarkable how the author can show moderate understanding of some of the nuance of free speech and then propose these remarkably terrible ideas without any thought for the unintended consequences of those ideas.

A second is the remarkable lack of justification for the compromise of freedom of speech. All the author can do is point to a handful of deaths and minor drama on the internet. There's absolutely no large scale protection of "equality, safety and robust democratic participation" going on, much less needed. It's just small scale things like "bully a teenager into suicide" or incredibly nebulous threats like "drive a democracy toward totalitarianism". On the latter where does this essay fall? Should we be censoring it as a sufficient threat to the democracy of the US since after all it recommends serious compromises of that democracy?

Third is that such core principles will always be in conflict. There's always an excuse to meddle and choke off our rights. We don't need a general tool when basic law, particularly, law on criminal acts covers the bases quite well.

Ultimately, this is a ridiculous, myopic effort that would cause more problems than it fixes. We have better things to do than break things that work (and have worked well for centuries!) for problems that mostly don't even exist.

Old news, from July of this year - https://100percentfedup.com/armed-antifa-terrorist-manifesto-reveals-inspiration-by-democrat-aoc/

Odd, I do a search for Willem Van Spronsen and there seem to be zero hits from the liberal mainstream media. Fox is the sixth hit, washingtontimes and washington post a ways down from Fox. Several lesser known sites cover him, like pacificpundit, thefederalist, legalinsurrection. There is no CNN, NBC, ABC - wait, back about three pages apnews.com - https://apnews.com/6bbb56a3887e46db80516a01858b5e75

ARMED ANTIFA TERRORIST Manifesto Reveals Inspiration By Democrat AOC

Yesterday, an armed self-described member of Antifa, Willem Van Spronsen, a was shot and killed by law enforcement officers after he threw explosives at an ICE detention center in Tacoma, WA.

Seattle Times reports that this was not Van Spronsen’s first run in with law enforcement tied to an immigration detention center

Van Spronsen’s manifesto was filled with radical rhetoric frequently heard coming from the leftist media and far-left Democrat U.S. Representatives like AOC, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

In this page of his manifesto, the Antifa terrorist adopts the term “concentration camps” used by Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) to describe detention centers on our southern border used to house illegal aliens.

In this page of his manifesto, Van Spronsen uses a term used by another radical leftist, Michael Brown’s stepfather, who called on Black Lives Matter terrorists to “burn the motherf**ker down!”, a reference to burning down the city of Ferguson, MO, after Officer Wilson was exonorated in the highly charged “hands up, don’t shoot” case, that proved the whole “hands up don’t shoot” exchange never took place. He also cites the “Proud Boys,” a group that was formed to protect free speech advocates from the violent anti-free speech terror group, Antifa.

Finally, on this page, Willem Van Spronsen makes his allegience to Antifa known, saying: “i am antifa.” He also indicates that he is part of a trans community, as he identifies his “trans comrades” a term commonly used when referring to fellow communists.

Conservative, First Amendment defender and trial lawyer, Harmeet K. Dhillon tweeted a thread likening the John Brown Gun Club, “JBGC” to a gateway drug to the violent Antifa terror group. After independent journalist Andy Ngo was severely beaten by Antifa in Portland, OR, Dhillon agreed to defend him in his case against the brutal leftist terrorists.

The fact that leftist terrorists have killed few people is not a result of their more civilized, or humane conduct. It is a result of their incompetence to terrorize people.

I just stumbled over this damned fool, while searching for AOC Manifesto. That was the subject of discussion on talk radio this morning. AOC has written a manifesto. She can be expected to shoot up a school, or a gay bar, or a synagogue soon. How many other shooters first published a manifesto, then went out to kill as many people as possible before the law caught up to them? O'Crazio is certainly crazy enough to shoot up a school!!

Just read the manifesto - it's full of acts giving American wealth away to anyone who ambles up to the border, and demands it.

Enjoy a video -
https://www.newswars.com/aoc-unveils-manifesto-a-just-society-means-rent-control-abolish-prisons-welfare-for-all-illegals/

It will never be a literal thing, only a useful fiction, sorry. You want proof? Tide doesn't make laundry soap that smells like bacon or WD-40.

This "capsule" Scotch whisky doesn't require a glass

Glenlivet's Tide Pod-like booze capsules have captivated social media

For the ultimate meal, you need the ultimate beverage.

http://v8tools.com/special.html#3803

Scroll down to the last entry. WK-01 Warm Keyboard.

Keep your hands warm!

Heated computer Keyboard keeps your hands warm for those cold shops!

Perfect for shops in the cold, winter months!
Great multi-media keys along the top
Promotes healthy blood circulation in your hands
Convenient USB connections
Patented in the USA, China and Taiwan
Safe and energy efficient
Tested to comply with FCC standards for home and office use
UL listed. The keyboard does have a separate 110v power supply.
manufacturer's suggested list:
$65.20

Now, if they offered a heated foot board to go under the desk, I could probably turn off my heat for the winter months!!

Should I put a disclaimer here? I'm not associated in any way with V8tools. And, no, this isn't a spam post, I prefer bacon.

But, I'm not done here yet! Who would have thought that browsing a tool site would find a rather well thought out opinion piece written by a PhD?
http://v8tools.com/AngryAmerica.pdf

Oh, those Angry Americans!! (I've quoted the first paragraph here, click the link for the full PDF)

THE GREAT TECH REVOLUTION: OUR BLESSING AND CURSE

  From the supporters of Donald Trump (and Bernie Sanders), to the street protesters
of Southern Europe, voters around the world are mad as hell.
“Inequality, immigration, and the establishment's perceived indifference, are firing up
electorates in a way that has rarely been seen before”- Andre Tartar, et al , Bloomberg
3/22/16.
The authors have continued to document the buildup of income inequality all over the
world in recent years and suggest that things are getting worse. The author of the
present article further suggests this global phenomenon is deeply rooted in another
global happening, the technological revolution which is altering this world inside out.
It promotes prosperity and growth, and it also creates insecurity and frustration among a
ever greater number of people around the world. Yet, the tech changes are so much a
part of our daily lives that we tend to take it for granted. Has it become the elephant in
the room that we ignore? It is the time to take a look at this elephant before it crushes
us. We will talk about a few of the things the new industrial revolution has done to us,
the impact of automation, extreme competition, tech monopolies, and the coming
recession in America. This author will also say a few things about what we can do in
the future

More articles written by Wen-Lung Chang PhD here,
http://v8tools.com/writing.html

Oh, back to the tools part of V8Tools:

I was chasing after some adjustable wrenches. Looking for extra-wide jaw adjustable wrenches. The best thing I have found is made by Sunex. Let me find the link for that - https://sunextools.com/products/9614-12-wide-jaw-adjustable-wrench/

Thing opens up to fit a 2 1/2" bolt, nut, or fitting, bigger than either my 15" or 18" Crescent brand wrenches. I already own one of these, slightly modified. Throw it on a surface grinder table, and grind the thickness of the jaws down some, and you can replace an entire set of "service wrenches". Two sets, actually - SAE and metric. Any time I have to work on a hydraulic cylinder, I reach for this Sunex to hold the shaft, while I turn the nut with a more standard wrench.

And, if anyone knows where to find a 15", 18", or even a 24" adjustable with similar features, let me know!!

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16 Core CPU Overclocked and Benchmarked at 4.4 GHz – 4.3 GHz Stated As Sweet-Spot, Outperforms The 24 Core Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX

Ryzen 9 and Threadripper

3950X = 16 cores, 3.5 GHz base, 4.7 GHz turbo, 105W TDP
2970WX = 24 cores, 3 GHz base, 4.2 GHz turbo, 250W TDP
2990WX = 32 cores, 3 GHz base, 4.2 GHz turbo, 250W TDP

Unnamed 32-core Threadripper 3 CPU could be between 30% and 70% faster than the 32-core 2990WX. The unnamed 24-core Threadripper 3 CPU could beat/match 2990WX. That's probably important if 24-core TR3 launches months earlier than 32-core TR3. 24-core TR3 will likely be the cheapest chip with the fewest cores of that lineup (no new 16-core Threadrippers anymore), and could beat the top TR2 chip.

This could be accounted for by a 20% base clock increase, ~18% IPC increase, better AVX2 support, etc. The performance of Threadripper 3 may be significantly improved by better memory bandwidth (half the cores were constrained previously) and new motherboards supporting 8-channel memory, etc.

Expect a 48-core TR3, and maybe 64-core eventually.

AMD EPYC Genoa ‘Zen 4’ CPUs To Feature New Memory, New Socket ‘SP5 Platform’ & New Capabilities – EPYC Milan ‘Zen 3’ To Retain 64 Cores, PCIe 4, DDR4 & Socket Compatibility

Looks like Zen 3 improvements could be relatively minor, and no 3-4 way SMT. Nothing is mentioned about HBM on-chip L4 cache. That is the big improvement I would wait for.

AMD Ryzen 9 3900 Tested: Unreleased 65W Processor Sets World Records

12-core drops down from 105W TDP, and will presumably launch at $450 or less instead of $500 for 3900X.

Although I am a strong supporter of carbon taxes and was a very public proponent of I-732, the previous carbon tax initiative, I opposed 1631 for several reasons. I felt I-1631 was highly regressive, disproportionately taxing low-income individuals and families. It lacked specific guidelines on how the money would be spent. A partisan group of organizations was hardwired to control and direct the funding, and the public goals of the proposal were highly deceptive (“clean air”). In addition, 1631’s carbon fee started out too low to be effective (half that of 732). And the highly partisan nature of 1631 would undermine bipartisan efforts on climate change, which I believe are crucial.

I agreed to be a signatory for the statement against I-1631 in the official voter’s pamphlet and did a few blog posts on the subject. These blogs were in social media completely outside of and had no connection to the University of Washington.

My stance was not popular among the college’s activist students, my department chair (Dale Durran) and the COENV Dean’s office. The pro-1631 students used social media to call me all kinds of names, as did one vocal post-doctoral researcher in oceanography. They stated that I was in bed with oil companies, was on the payroll of the Koch brothers, was racist, misogynistic, a climate denier, and other names I would not repeat in a family friendly blog (see picture below for a tame example). It is all documented on twitter. The Seattle Stranger called me Trump’s Weatherman and repeated the student’s accusations and pictures.

Between the end of October and early November 2018, Department Chairman Dale Durran, COENV Associate Dean of Research Robert Wood, COENV Associate Dean of Administration Stephanie Harrington, and COENV Assistant Dean of Diversity Terryl Ross wrote a letter attacking my blog that was formally approved by Dean Lisa Graumlich. (all of this is documented in their internal emails).

Their letter, “Message on Departmental Civility”, was sent to MY ENTIRE DEPARTMENT (including staff, faculty, and students—over 120 people) on November 22, stating that my blog “included imagery and text that was racially insensitive and caused offense.” The letter accused me of racism through the statement “Racism is in direct contradiction to our shared values and has no place in our college” as well as suggesting that I harmed the community through my blog.

After the letter was released, I protested that it was both illegal and unfair, which led Atmospheric Sciences Chair (and publicly declared 1631 proponent) Dale Durran, with the knowledge of the Dean’s office, to call a DEPARTMENT WIDE meeting on December 5 to discuss my blog.

[...]

Durran called on the activist students, who made a range of comments critical of my blog. As I tried to talk about the concept of freedom of speech, Dale Durran started screaming at me, telling me to stop. When I protested I wasn’t finished speaking, he screamed even louder. This went on for a while, with both of us talking at the same time, before the Ombud Sloan said I should be allowed continue.

But a minute later Dale Durran started screaming at me again to stop, preventing me from finishing. Then he called upon several more “offended” students and one staff member, who went on the attack, accusing me of racism and worst. One of the students stated that I would be “held accountable” for my blog and opposing 1631. It was a direct threat. And no one said a word about it.

Afterward, several faculty who had attended the gathering told me they were afraid to speak in my defense. One, a full professor and past chair, told me that what had happened was very wrong but he was scared to talk.

Another faculty member, who was originally from China and lived through the Cultural Revolution told me it was exactly like the shaming sessions of Maoist China, with young Red Guards criticizing and shaming elders they wanted to embarrass and remove.

For extra credit, he goes on to detail two cases where the College of the Environment pushed him and another (the second comes from an organization that merged later with the College) to support a narrative that exaggerated the local effects (to the Pacific Northwest of the US) of climate change with an example of oysters and winter snowpack.

In September 2013, the Seattle Times ran a glossy series called “Sea Change”, which claimed that ocean acidification caused the deaths of untold numbers of local oysters in factory nurseries. There were serious technical problems with the article, including the fact that the oyster deaths were of a non-native species in industrial nurseries and that the problem was not really the small amount of acidification by increasing CO2, but rather the mistaken ingestion of less basic upwelled water (as noted by many sources, including leading NOAA scientists). Furthermore, several of the oyster farms were spraying herbicides and pesticides over state waters and greatly disturbing fragile coastal areas (issues that came out in 2015 in story by the Seattle Times Danny Westneat).

[...]

A week or two after my second blog on the topic I got a call from my chair. Dean Lisa Graumlich was “concerned” about my blog and wanted the department chair to talk to me about it. It was also pointed out that the College was receiving a large amount of State funds for a UW acidification center and that the Governor had been hailing the dying oysters as evidence of the grave impact of increasing CO2. In short, a false narrative was supporting the Governor’s claims and providing millions of dollars to the college. The clear message: I should lay off.

and

The history of politicized suppression of science goes back to the roots of my college. Back in 2005-2006, a few local politicians (such as then Mayor Greg Nickels) and some UW climate impacts folks were claiming that the Cascade snowpack was rapidly disappearing (50% loss!) and the anthropogenic global warming was the cause. A UW researcher and previous Washington State Climatologist Mark Albright analyzed the snowpack information and found little decline, and he mentioned this fact on a few local electronic mailing lists.

The State Climatologist at that time (Phil Mote) and member of the Climate Impacts Group (now a part of the College) was an author of a paper claiming draconian snowpack loss and warned Mark Albright to refrain from communicating his analysis to others. When Mark rightfully refused, Mote fired Mark Albright as Associate Climatologist. This action hit the media, went viral, reaching local newspapers and even got covered by CNN. A very serious breach of the academic freedom.

So here we have an example of persecution of someone who actually supports aggressive climate change mitigation, merely because they didn't support a particular bad idea. And it was by a university department, demonstrating some of the craziness that has built up in the academic realm over the past half century.