Rebane's Ruminations

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Category: Web/Tech

  • And then what shall we do?

    The company that pits its labor against another’s use of technology loses.  The worker who pits his labor against technology loses. – The John Henry Law & Corollary George Rebane [This is the linked transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 31 January 2018.] Let’s take a break from the political goings on in Washington and…

  • US Students’ PISA Ratings

    George Rebane The latest (2015) release of PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) scores are out, and the all important ratings for 15-year-olds in now a matter of record.  We have long mourned the performance deficits in our educational system and the resulting standing our students have on the international stage where America must compete…

  • An Innumerate SCOTUS, oh my!

    A nation ignorant and free, that never was and never shall be.  Thomas Jefferson George Rebane [This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 8 November 2017.] Numeracy is the name given to a set of math oriented skills that an educated lay person is supposed to have in order to…

  • The Singularity is Nearer

    George Rebane Have you noticed over the years when we have met in these pages to talk about the Singularity, that today finally everyone is talking about it in one fashion or another.  It’s as if suddenly everyone who reads is being introduced to the newest developments in AI and the possible futures it portends…

  • Introducing Politically Correct Mathematics

    George Rebane [This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 25 October 2017.  A slightly edited version of this appeared as an op-ed in the 4nov17 Union (here). gjr] In these commentaries we have chronicled the long decline of America’s K-12 education, a decline that has now been joined by our…

  • Ruminations – 11oct17 (updated)

    George Rebane MIT’s Max Tegmark just released Life 3.0 – Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, which I bought immediately and dove right in last night.  In his prelude Tegmark takes us through a scenario of a developing AI super-intelligence and its human ‘handlers’ that includes treatment of rampantly systemic unemployment addressed through…

  • Why Not 24/7 Air Attack? (updated 11oct17)

    George Rebane Dropping fire suppressants from fixed and rotary wing aircraft is an extremely effective way to fight wildfires.  Living in the southern California mountains we annually witnessed how air attack kept little fires from becoming big, and big fires from going into populated areas.  In the 1993 Malibu fire, it was five or six…

  • Tax Policy Noodlings

    George Rebane The newly proposed GOP tax cut has everyone talking.  A couple of its main features are supposed to include switching from sequential taxing to concurrent taxing of earnings.  Also discussed is the removal of certain deductions like mortgage interest paid from taxable earnings.  I was interested in the impact of these two policy…

  • Max Tegmark, welcome aboard!

    George Rebane The Singularity must really be near when we have MIT physicist Max Tegmark climb aboard with the spate of science and industry luminaries who have recently discovered that intelligent machines will someday surpass humans, will systemically displace human labor, and (in a TBD form) will become the dominant lifeform on Earth.  Dr Tegmark…

  • The Return of Featherbedding (updated 5aug17)

    George Rebane When George Westinghouse patented his railway ‘fail-safe’ airbrakes in 1869, that new technology inaugurated a century of what came to be called featherbedding for the railroad industry as unions successfully fought the railroads to continue employing unneeded workers.  Prior to airbrakes on each railroad car, the speed of trains on down grades were…

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