A scientific theory doesn't have to be wrong or right. It can simply be useful as long as the limitations are understood. Eg, the domains where it applies and the domains where you shouldn't use it.
Isaac Asimov wrote a really great essay about this, in which he pointed out that some people thought the Earth was flat. And it is flat, on a local scale. Then people thought it was round. And it is round, just not exactly. Then it was considered an oblate sphere. And it is an oblate sphere - just not exactly.
The main theme of his essay is to point out that a theory can be wrong, but pretty accurate. Enough for rough work. And the one that replaces it can also be wrong, but even closer. Etc. So all theories in succession can be wrong. The real question is how wrong a theory is, and how useful it is.
> I don’t like ads, but I think the only ethical options are posting to avoid them (preferably direct to artists) or watching ads
I think that ethical position is weakened by the fact many ads are links to scams and unethical things. You aren't just supporting creators by watching adverts, you're also potentially exposing yourself to bad faith actors.
To be honest, my ethical calculation comes out the other way around.
If someone is playing honest with me in good faith, and they ask for a show of good faith back, I think reciprocity, good manners and ethics favour the idea that I should do so.
If someone asks me to play fair with them, and then tries to shaft me - then any consideration I might have had for their position goes out the window. I don’t feel the slightest need to play fair with them because they are a bad faith actor.
To be clear, this is purely an opinion about ads on YouTube and whether I have to sit in one of two ethical buckets, not advocating an anything goes position.
My opinion is that there’s a third ethical position, which is a bit like the classical solution to the prisoner’s dilemma: co-operate until the other person plays you false. After that, don’t consider them a friend, and there’s no ethical problem in refusing to cooperate with them.
> If those companies using chat bots are failing to provide value, then they won't be competitive and they will go away.
The difficulty is, this is obscured to the customer.
Let's say I have a broadband account in a country with competitors I can choose between (eg the UK, where I can have BT or Virgin). I've already chosen the best package for me. I'm ringing up after six months of good service to fix my intermittent line drop.
The chat bot is terrible and I have to wait until the problem goes away on its own.
Unfortunately for me, I can't just guarantee that switching to the other service will make a difference, because chat bots are not core service. I can compare broadband options and pick the best, and I'm already on that. Now I have to gamble that some combination of:
(broadband option) + (customer service) is higher than the one I'm on.
Unfortunately for me, I have no way of checking this. There's every chance that I'll end up on a worse broadband option and a worse customer service option.
If you want decent support as part of the core offering you can pay a bit more for Andrews and Arnold, their support staff are in the UK, all technically capable rather than KB parrots, and available by IRC. Lower customer contention for their shared bandwidth so it doesn’t slow down at night is another thing worth paying a bit more for. And they have a decently technical control panel web page.
I don't even mind the sponsored placements in my search. I'd just like a search for X to give me a page full of X, not random junk bearing no relationship to X.
I first turned on my ipad, then sat for several minutes staring at a box on the screen that clearly wanted input but had no continue button. Only slowly did it dawn on me that there was a hidden scroll region that would enable it.
There are loads of murder methods the author hasn't thought of.
Just off the top of my head, you could have murder by: g-forces, laser (James Bond), removal of medicine, excitement to heart attack, introduction of disease, cannibalism, wood chipper, exsanguination, leaving no choice but suicide, freezing, and, in the case of one famous King of England, a red hot poker up the rear end. I'm sure I've read all of these at some time in one book or another.
I recall a story from a 1970's anthology where the victim was injected with a harmless clear liquid. Of course he was checked out by doctors - who found no negative affects. He then went home and the family Alsatian (German Shepherd) killed him because his body scent had been changed.
If you wanted to kill someone with a bullet made of ice, or, IMHO even cooler, dry ice, you'd forgo a conventional cartridge, which would contaminate the scene with gunpowder anyway.
You'd use something like compressed air. You can reduce the instantaneous pressure delivered to the projectile which helps fix the melting problem. You'd want to chill the barrel a bit, but some melting might be good there as long as the water doesn't refreeze in the barrel and stop successive rounds. Basically you're making a potato cannon that shoots ice.
Bonus for freezing the water/co2 out of the air itself. You wouldn't even need to carry ammo.
On the other hand, 30 million Raspberry Pis have been sold and an enormous number of people are learning to code as a result of free online resources. I'm not so sure the end of general-purpose computing for the masses is all that over.
Even your example describes someone who, while he isn't fluent with it, actually owns a general purpose computer.
I'm not sure whether it's one of his expected use-cases, but his work has made it so simple for me to get things from my writing group quickly onto my kindle. Plus, my own draft stories.
As someone who spends far too long on a computer screen as it is, the simple workflow of putting things easily on a kindle has been a real positive for me. And doubly so in this time of lockdown and Covid.
If the author does browse these forums - thank you so much for your work.
There is snowflake's chance in hell libraries would be legal if introduced now. The only reason we have them, is they were grandfathered in from times with less corporate power.
Isaac Asimov wrote a really great essay about this, in which he pointed out that some people thought the Earth was flat. And it is flat, on a local scale. Then people thought it was round. And it is round, just not exactly. Then it was considered an oblate sphere. And it is an oblate sphere - just not exactly.
The main theme of his essay is to point out that a theory can be wrong, but pretty accurate. Enough for rough work. And the one that replaces it can also be wrong, but even closer. Etc. So all theories in succession can be wrong. The real question is how wrong a theory is, and how useful it is.
Here's the essay:
https://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html