Silicon Valley Redneck

Dude. Put down the bong.

Over at CNBC:

Now is the time to figure out the ethical rights of robots in the workplace

Wait, what?

By the year 2025, robots and machines driven by artificial intelligence are predicted to perform half of all productive functions in the workplace. What is not clear is whether the robots will have any worker rights.

They're machines, not lifeforms.  They don't have rights.  Their owners have property rights.  This is not difficult.

We kick the car when it does not operate, shove the vending machine when it does not dispense, and bang at the sides of the printer when it does not produce a copy. What is new is that it will only be a matter of time before the automated creatures will "feel" this hostility and/or feel the need to retaliate.

Been at George Lucas's stash, have we?

Jabba's robot torture chamber shows a particularly sadistic bit of world-building: the robots are designed to be susceptible to torture.  It's like Proctor-Silex went out of its way to make toasters and blenders that could feel pain and respond with anguish.

Why would any sane person do that?  Unless the entire appliance business is taken over by particularly evil psychopaths, it ain't gonna happen.

These acts of hostility and violence have no current legal consequence — machines have no protected legal rights.

"No current legal consequence"?  Damaging someone else's property most assuredly does have legal consequences, at least if the laws are being enforced.  And the author doesn't seem to be referring much to an owner mistreating his own equipment*.

Robots need worker rights, too

No.  They.  Don't.

This whole thing is a total mess.  It's like the author learned all about AI from Sci-Fi stories and corporate press releases.  Here's a hint: there are no such things as positronic brains.

What's being called "artificial intelligence" is so far from artificial people - or even artificial hamsters - that there's no reason to believe that current work will ever produce entities worthy of the legal status of people.  It's very likely to create vast disruptions in the skilled-labor market, yes, but just because a program can give better legal advice than the average fully-credentialed lawyer doesn't mean it's a real person.

Andrew Sherman is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Seyfarth Shaw

And if you ever need a law firm, there's one to avoid.  Unless you don't have a leg to stand on and need an elaborate song and dance.  Even at that, you might be better off with Allan Sherman.  Even if he is dead these many years.

* Cue Henry Morgan's Mr. Dooley.

That newfangled missile thingy

Yeah, that avant-garde missile that's such a big deal at the moment.

Wowser!  It can go Mach 27!  That's... like... (ponders Kessel run, then pokes the number into a handy units converter)... er, orbital speed?  Yeah, we used to have a glider that'd go that fast out in space.  Back in the 1980s, as I recall.

So the big deal is not how fast it goes, but how maneuverable it supposedly is during reëntry; all else is showmanship.

(Looks at Russian Wikipedia pages for the missile and the artistic style/movement/wossname; yup, same word.  One might think that a squash-head round would be avant-gourd, but one would be mistaken.)

Afterthought:  Mach 27 is rather less than the top speed of a Tesla Roadster.

Unclear on the concept: model numbers

Coming up on time to replace all the deadbolts.  Want to have them all keyed alike, despite having two different colors and a mixture of single- and double-cylinder types.

Which sounds like it requires the intervention of a locksmith (either that, or learning how to re-key them myself).

But... Amazon shows the cheap Kwikset 660 series having the SmartKey feature, for easy DIY re-keying.  How come I didn't notice that when looking at locks in the big-box stores?

Back to Home Depot.  The 660-series locks on the shelf definitely do not have SmartKey.  Look up SmartKey on Kwikset's web site (on my phone): the 660 series is on the list.  Back to Amazon, later: yes, I was looking at a model 660, with SmartKey.

So, um.  They're using the same model number for two decidedly different products?  How helpful.

Also noted at the big-box stores, when looking at locks, doorknobs, and such: many of them, from various vendors, don't show the product-line name, finish, model number, and other distinguishing information on the retail packaging.  It's on the label on the display carton, but not on the individual packages.  Why?

Ugh. Heating season.

Too much time indoors with the doors and windows closed and the heat on.

Ergo, seriously messed up sinuses.

Maybe I'd better go shopping for a vaporizer today.  The dry air isn't the whole problem, but it's a big part of it.

Kinda missing a point, here.

Jonah Goldberg, yesterday:

Immigration policy itself is something of an afterthought. Serious restrictionists readily concede that a wall would be far less useful than mandatory E-Verify and other such efforts to make hiring illegal immigrants more difficult.

Um.

While the overall point of the piece is good, this particular bit is just plain wrong.

See, border security is a national-security issue.  Dey took 'er jerbs!! is not.

E-Verify is all very well if your goal is economic protectionism, but... well, sure, next time a bunch of Redcoats sneak across the border hidden in a giant wooden moose, we'll fer sure! keep 'em from finding honest employment once they're here.  As if that were their intention.

Open borders plus invasive measures to prevent illegal aliens from finding gainful employment may cut down on the supply of unskilled labor, but it does nothing to cut down on the supply of fentanyl, gang members, terrorists, saboteurs, and whatnot.

I guess that's really the thing, though.  E-Verify is a way of forcing citizens to be documented, and to present their identity papers and entreat the Great White Father in Washington for permission to be employed.  If we had secure borders, the excuse for all that would go away, and we can't have that, can we?

Methinks I've heard this before.

Kevin Williamson, just recently:

Utopian political movements — and all totalitarian movements are basically utopian — love the world, except for all the people in it. They all are antiliberal and they all seek to degrade the individual and individualism. Their liturgy requires an object of adoration, and it’s usually the same object: the People, or, as American populists like to put it, We the People. For traditional nationalists, it’s the Nation in abstract and idealized form; for socialists, it’s always been the proletariat, who apparently are the only people included in the People. If you’re acting in the name of the People, you can brutalize persons. The interests of the People require a gulag, the interests of the People require a death camp, and if the people have to suffer for the People, then so be it.

Kipling, 1912 or so:

Once there was The People--Terror gave it birth;
Once there was The People and it made a Hell of Earth

So long as there are Philosopher Kings, there'll be atrocities demanded in the name of the Holy Cause.  And those who fail to conform to the Grand Philosophical Vision must be eliminated in order that Society may be Perfected.

It's never the hazard you're watching for

So we moved the new vanity into the bathroom at the Residence of Record yesterday....

Also, we went shopping for a faucet; the vanity came with a sink, but not the faucet, drain hardware, and so on.  Home Depot and Lowe's both had suitable-looking faucets in the right price range, except that neither had any stock.  (The Interwebs show the Sunnyvale Lowe's having stock as of 0-dark-hundred this morning, though.)  The drain hardware having been procured, I realized that I needed the box of plumbing stuff currently sitting in the garage at the Interim Digs, so installation failed to progress for the moment.

But there was the big cardboard box in the living room to be disassembled.  So out with the utility knife; slash, slash, rip, rip... OWWWW!

I'd been minding the blade, no problem.  What I hadn't been minding was the newly-cut cardboard.  PAPER CUT!

Reminds me of a messy weapon-related accident many years back.  I stepped over the bunny barrier, carrying a loaded water pistol, observing all safety rules as if it were an actual weapon... and, while I was worrying about where the squirt gun was pointed, I wasn't watching my foot, which collided with the wall furnace, resulting in a lacerated toe.  (Naturally, I blame the NRA.)

Sometimes my brain thinks weird things.

Playing with a SciFi trope, then wandering off topic, I ended up with someone flipping a coin*.

This being The Future, it was of course an unusual coin, because normal monetary coins were long obsolete.

It was laminated, with the head side gold and the tail side silver.

Which... surely that would result in a toss being more likely to come up tails than heads, no?  But how much more likely?

I don't, offhand, have a clue how to start calculating such a thing.  And I mustn't become distracted by it, because I need to go do some plumbing and a bit of minor stucco patching.  Oh, and paint some doodads white.

* OK, OK... the Captain flipped a coin to choose a course of action.  This is important, because he'd done it earlier in the movie, just before the disaster that led to his arming the ship's destruct system and then discovering that, next to the Big Red Button, there was a totally undocumented Big Yellow Button/Dial, which, on questioning, the ship's computer revealed to be the Plot Reset Button, so now that he's set the time and pushed it, we need a random event to change the course of the story.  And thus the Captain needs a coin.

Here's a puzzlement

How come I keep getting spam relating to JCM Consulting Technologies at my personal e-mail address?

Trivial answer: because spam sent to my JCM address would bounce, duh!

Less trivially, though: how did spammers come to associate my personal address with JCM?

Another fine idea collides with reality.

Doing some unstructured fiddling this morning, and playing with ideas for a long-idle project that needs reviving (and some structural updates).

The project has morphed (conceptually) into three-or-so parts, with a clear client-server division between one and the other two-or-so.  Seems reasonable, at first glance, to pass JSON back & forth, being as how that's a widely-available standard, and the client may well be implemented in a web browser.

And, for most of my purposes, JSON objects are well suited.  But sometimes I want to send a command string.  Looking at the definition of JSON, it seems that

"status -a"

(including the quotation marks) is a perfectly valid JSON value, and thus valid JSON, and I should be able to identify it by virtue of the JSON parser returning a string rather than a hash.

But, alas, no.  Turns out Ruby's JSON.parse doesn't play that game; it'll take a JSON object and return a hash, or a JSON array and return an array, but given a simple JSON value it throws an exception.

So I guess I gotta pass nothing but objects, and have commands wrapped up in objects.  I'll take a look at JSON-RPC, but that may be excessive; perhaps just having a distinctively-named element for sending a command string will do what I need.  Thing is, most of the time I just want to pass data objects and not procedure calls.

More study is required.

Update:  What's more, I'd forgotten how network access in JavaScript works.  Been many a year since I did any AJAX (actually, AJAS - Asynchronous JavaScript And SCPI).  So if I'm trying to do something that'll play nice with browser-type clients, I think I need to deal with some HTTP headers anyway, which may mean that passing commands wrapped in JSON becomes irrelevant.

Again, more study....

Update 2:  This

The W3C recommends that browsers should raise an error and not allow the request of a URL with either a different port or ihost URI component from the current document.

is most vexing.  I really want to be running a data server that's separate from the web server.  Probably on the same host, but on a separate port.

Oh, well.  A simple web server in Ruby to supply the UI page isn't all that much trouble, but having the UI page served by Apache would allow for generating it using PHP or whatever.

Maybe I need to have a PHP-or-something interface to connect the browser UI to the data server...?  This is getting gratuitously complicated.  (That's actually how I did some of the initial testing of the AJAS thing, for reasons I no longer fully recall.)

Update 3:  Yeah, looks like any browser-based-UI interactions with the data server will have to go through some kind of script running on a normal web server.  Which is probably a good idea anyway, but it kind of constrains my options.  A local UI can still talk directly to the data server over a vanilla TCP connection, sending JSON objects back and forth.

A Christmas-morning lesson for the ages

Bacon left over from Thanksgiving should be consumed well before Christmas.

Phew.  Gonna take forever to get the kitchen smelling normal again.  It's not so much bad as... just not right.

Sin options

Last Friday @ AoSHQ: pick one deadly-sin-enhancing artifact in exchange for your soul!

I think I already mentioned that I'm not very good at gluttony.  Let's see what's on offer (follow the link for descriptions; I'm not gonna retype them here).

WALLET OF GREED:  Handy, but hardly something I'd trade my soul for, assuming that such things exist and that I have one.

WATCH OF SLOTH:  Naw.  Now, an actual time machine with DWIM feature....

SPECTACLES OF ENVY:  I'm not really seeing the point of these.

RING OF PRIDE:  Now, this I can see the use of.  But my sloth says no to it.  Also, I don't like wearing stuff on nor around my hands.

FLASK OF GLUTTONY:  Nope.

GUN OF WRATH:  Um... no?  Not even the vampirical aspects.

LOCKET OF LUST:  I've got one already.  Using it would be socially and logistically awkward.

In summary: four out of seven I can reject out of hand.  Two I can eliminate based on practical and lifestyle considerations.  The remaining one would be nice to have, given a few assumptions, but it's not something I'd warp my life (or afterlife) to acquire.

Addendum:  It's also a bad idea to sell your soul for a Gun of Sport.  (I guess in this context that would actually be a Bullet of Pride...?)

These names are so confusing

To be baked this evening: a kabocha squash.

I have to look at the label to be sure.  Otherwise it might be kombucha, kabuki, Kubota, kaboodle, karaoke, or Kerokerokeroppi.

Update:  That squash had a fair amount of flavor to it.  I think that variety goes on the spring planting list.

Well, duh.

Headline at CNN:

Stocks fall after Steven Mnuchin's odd statement fails to calm markets

Gee, ya think?  SecTreas announces, totally out of nowhere:  Do not panic.  Everything is fine.  Nothing to see here.  Move along.  And investors are supposed to believe that there's absolutely nothing going on?

Pull the other one; it's got bells, bulls, and/or bears on.

Of course, one of the best ways to get a rumor started is to issue a denial of something nobody believed before you denied it....

Unintended consequences

So, if a man who's been surgically transmogrified into the semblance of a woman can compete in the Miss Universe pageant...

How about a construct of silicon, steel, and silicone that's been engineered into the semblance of a woman?

Think any natural woman will be able to compete in such an event with the sexbots of a few years hence?

Now, Billy, remember what the Space Pope has to say about dating robots!

 

Addendum:  I know little of this "Miss Universe pageant" thing, and nothing of its rules, but don't most competitive events have restrictions on what augmentation the competitors are allowed to use?  Bans on performance-enhancing drugs in athletic events, equipment restrictions in various sorts of car racing, and so on?  I'd expect beauty contests to prohibit surgical enhancement, lest they become competitions among surgeons.  Which becomes an interesting prospect in its own right; imagine the contestants' clothes bearing the names of their plastic surgeons and the logos of their suppliers and sponsors.

Life gets more like Futurama every day.

Weird dream

Typically for such, I tuned in somewhere in the middle, so context was lacking.  Seems I was somehow involved with, or observing, creation of the latest iteration of clone-trooper costumes for some new Star Wars movie.

In this one (and perhaps retcon would be applied, with interesting effects on all the films that had gone before), the clone troopers were female.  And oviparous.  And they had special incubator compartments in their helmets for carrying their eggs around.  (Because carrying your unhatched offspring into battle totally makes sense.)

That was pretty much it; all else was detail.  The costume designers already had several iterations of mockups, most of which made even less sense than the concept.  Most involved arrays of chicken eggs, though the latest could handle both an array of chicken eggs and a pair of ostrich eggs, which combination made still less sense.

If this turns up in the next movie, I'm gonna start wearing tinfoil to bed.

Wait, where have I heard this before?

So there I was, watching the latest Stumpy Nubs video (because plumbing efforts are suspended until the morrow)....

As evidence that having music on in the workshop is not a hazard, he pointed to studies involving surgeons who have music on in the operating room.

A memory stirs:

Our doctor is a curious soul, an operating man
He takes out spleens to Beethoven and Khachaturian
One day he grabbed a crewman who had called the doc a quack
We couldn't look at what he took, oh doc please put it back!

Leslie Fish, "Good Ship Manatee".  From an old tape.

It's never as simple as all that.

In addition to all the stuff that was on the schedule....

Flooring installation involved removal and reinstallation of the toilet.  Which is no big deal, as long as it's somebody else doing it.  Except!  The supply valve seems to have developed a slow, drippy leak, perhaps as a result of being turned off and back on for the first time in a great many years.

The supply valves for the sink (yet to be installed; we're replacing the old one) are of the same type and vintage, so: gotta buy a trio of replacements, turn the water off out front, and replace the old valves.

Also, a puddle appeared under my father's kitchen sink yesterday evening, amid heavy use.  Leaky drain: no big deal, right?  Except that I just spent a while under there, and the leak isn't where I'd thought it was.  I fixed where I thought it was, then tightened up an unexpectedly loose fitting, then discovered that the real leak is in a fitting that doesn't even make sense.  So I guess I leave the drip bucket in place for now, and tomorrow morning it's off to Home Despot again for (among other things) a dishwasher branch tailpipe, which apparently is what should be there instead of the weird kludge I'm seeing.  (Checks dimension: yes, an 8" long tailpipe should be just right.)

Update:  Actually, there's still a hardware store in Palo Alto; maybe I should try there?  Hm; it's right near the little old Whole Foods; I didn't realize that was still there.  (Also St. Michael's Alley; I'm trying to remember why that sounds familiar.)  So, off shopping.  Return with one-each bog-standard dishwasher branch tailpiece.  Disassemble the old; assemble the new...

... Oops.  The dishwasher drain hose is two sizes too big to fasten to a modern-standard branch.  Growf.

Futz around some more.  Figure out how to fix the leak in the old tailpiece assembly: yay!  Then try to re-install it: argh.  Can't get the dang thing re-attached to the strainer basket, for whatever reason - possibly because important bits have corroded off?

Now taking a break and resting my back & knees.  Got to get the sink back in some semblance of working order soon so's dinner can be fixed.

Update 2 (Saturday morning):  The fix didn't actually fix the leak, which is rather a surprising development.  Also, there's just no way the old tailpiece is re-attaching properly to the strainer basket.  Correct tailpieces do seem to exist; I've ordered one from Amazon ($4), but it won't arrive until sometime Sunday.  Have to try a plumbing-supply place this morning; there's one not unreasonably far away.

Update 3 (Saturday afternoon):  Yeah, the real plumbing supply place (Barron Park Supply Co., no longer located anywhere near Barron Park) had a fine selection of fixery-uppery stuff... except for the exact piece I was looking for, to replace the ancient kludge.  But between a correctly-dimensioned tailpiece and one of the accessory bits from the tailpiece with the too-small branch, and sawing a couple of inches off the new tailpiece because the accessory thingy makes the overall assembly too long, everything goes together.  Yay!

Except that there's still something leaking, and there seems to be no way to attach a tailpiece securely to that strainer basket.  Huh.

Oh, well.  It's a slow leak, and I guess tomorrow I'll break out the pipe dope, plumber's putty, and silicone sealant.

Civics

Currently in the news: Lindsey Graham doesn't want U.S. troops withdrawn from Syria.

So, er, Senator Graham.  Where's the authorization for this military adventure?  If the President is to keep troops in a foreign country fighting our enemies... shouldn't he have some sort of explicit permission from Congress?  If not an actual declaration of war, then at least an authorization for the use of military force?

Determining war and peace is Congress's job, not the President's.  You want a war, you get Congress to authorize one.

Home fixery-uppery, cont'd.

Progress is happening.  We're nearly done with the vast amount of small fiddly stuff.  And...

The flooring installers made a start yesterday.  And, by "start", I mean they put down the new vinyl-plank flooring in the living room (which is the part they said they expected to do the first day), the hallway, all three bedrooms, and halfway through the bathroom.  Also, they did a bunch of prep in the transitions to the kitchen.  Remaining to be done: the kitchen, the rest of the bathroom, some details of the hall closet, and then installation of the new baseboards.

Then there's some exterior stuff we need to deal with, during the next dry spell: some minor patchery, paint, new window screens, and replacing the door between garage and patio.  And I still need to finish with doorknobs and locks (which will involve, as it turns out, enlarging three old-size deadbolt mounting holes, unless I can find new deadbolts that'll fit in 1.75" holes).  Come to think of it: door replacement is really a job for someone else (maybe someone who owns a pickup truck; bringing a door home in the Prius seems a mite impractical), and perhaps that someone also does lock installation and perhaps even window-screen replacement?

But for the next couple of days, while the flooring work is in progress, I'm taking the opportunity to get some real work done.  Documentation updates, firmware changes triggered by documentation updates, and, oh yes, there's that Verilog thing I need to try on for size.

Update:  The original schedule estimate was 3-4 days.  As of Thursday morning, they think it's ending up a 2-day job.  And the work so far is looking good, apart from a damaged spot in the drywall (which I understand they'll be patching before they leave).

Update 2:  Turned out to be a day-and-a-half job; they finished shortly after noon on Thursday.  There's a little tidying-up-after to be done, but it's looking good.  I think we'll want to get a handyman in to deal with some of the other stuff that's potentially-DIY but annoying, time-consuming, needs a pickup truck, etc. (new garage-to-patio door, new window screens, and, as long as we're getting a door-installer out there, maybe have him embiggen the deadbolt mounting holes, possibly using the right tool for the job, whatever that might be (actually, the jig we were using would have worked fine if it were made of steel rather than flexy plastic)).  Oh, and I still need to fiddle with some of the outlets & switches in the kitchen, to get the cover plates to line up just right.  And we'll need new phone jacks, and other fiddly details.  New handles for the kitchen cabinets are supposed to arrive today.