I did not get the impression that this incident happened in an area originally settled by the Spanish. And just because the original European settlers should've learned the local languages but didn't, doesn't change that it's the right thing to do. I don't. I was just saying that the odds are not too bad for being able to find someone who knows some minimal amount of English, but expecting random other foreign languages... I don't know that there are many countries that have translation services available for any random language in their hospitals (obviously, translators for languages from neighboring countries or w/e might be relatively easy to come by too). It's just not something that I think the US is worse at than most other countries.

I've tried putting mine in the washer multiple times, with various amounts of towels, baking soda or bleach, etc, and never had success. Some parts always seem to end up folded onto themselves and collecting all the soap scum that's scrubbed off the other parts. I've given up on this, and just buy a new one once in a blue moon.

Quite possibly - I was only commenting on the plausibility of robots taking over all jobs in 40 years or w/e, not on the impact of that or other scenarios.

Yes, but what about *any* other language, other than Spanish (because it's Colombia) or English (because it's the global lingua franca)? If someone came in speaking, I dunno, Russian or Chinese or w/e, what would happen (I'm not even going to ask about more uncommon languages)?

What percentage of our jobs will be taken over by robots by 2060? Any question college admissions offices ask, and whether the questions college admissions offices ask make sense and whether there would be better questions. You can also do this with standard employer interview questions. Should everybody do a year abroad in high school or college (or, alternatively, be an "exchange student" in a family of a different subculture within their own country)? Kids are required to be educated from about 6-18yo. Should we change that law? If so, how? Make tertiary education required, require adults to take some number of hours of further education through their lives as part of lifelong learning (say, 100 hours per year or w/e), etc? Or should we require less education? Should the world population get bigger or smaller, and how to accomplish either goal? If you could cut the budget of any government department in half, which department's budget would you cut? Or alternatively, if you could double a department's budget, which one would you double? Should countries be able to draft people to be soldiers? Should women have to register for the draft? NL just dropped fro 16th to 32nd place in the global gender equality index, mostly because a lot of women don't work and most of the women who do work work part-time. At the same time, a 2013 study shows that Dutch kids are the happiest kids in the world. Discuss your thoughts on this. If you were a foreign country and you wanted to conquer the US, how would you do it? If there's one thing you could change (add, delete, change) about the US (or your state) constitution, what would it be? Should teenage moms be encouraged to keep their babies or to give them up for adoption (and if keep, should there be more govt support)? For what price would you be willing to never access the internet again, and what would you do if you actually got that money?

True. I just meant that I don't think intent is the main factor; that effect matters too (even though in my first post I also said something about intent).

I watched this a few months ago, and it gives some good examples of what robots can and can't do, at least for the nearby future: https://www.ted.com/talks/noriko_arai_can_a_robot_pass_a_university_entrance_exam

There's a big difference between consumer choices and business choices. If robots can do the job cheaper than humans can, companies almost certainly will use them, unless people boycott them or pass legislation to make it illegal. But realistically, since people still buy products made with child labor or made by people making barely enough to survive, I doubt that a boycott would be big enough, and the legal approach is unlikely to happen as well. Sure, *maybe* certain types of robot labor might be banned in the US... but for manufacturing purposes, odds are that people would then just happily buy robot-produced products from abroad. Would it be possible to make importing those products illegal? Sure... but, again, we import products made with highly questionable means, so... I doubt that would happen. Plus, countries using robot labor could easily outperform countries that don't use (much) robot labor, both economically and militarily etc, so, eventually, a country that doesn't use robot labor could lose out to the point of being conquered by a country that does use robot labor to a great degree (because historically speaking, people just love to conquer other countries). Anyhow, I'm still not convinced that non-routine jobs will be replaced by robot labor in 40 years. Most routine jobs? Quite possibly. Non-routine ones... I'm going to have to see some indication of actual intelligence from AI, and not just brute force working for certain problems most of the time.

I dunno... I'm pretty sure that in most other countries, if you speak some foreign language other than English you're likely to be out-of-luck in small town hospitals in areas with little diversity. Like, when I was an exchange student in Thailand, I once got mystery pills from a doctor (admittedly not a hospital), because the doctor's English was very minimal and his Dutch was non-existent, and I remember being surprised at all the "point at your language" signs in US pharmacies and the like (none of which have my language, of course)... I don't remember ever seeing such a sign in NL (I enjoy reading such signs while standing in line waiting, since it gives me something to do... of course, I don't understand half the languages on the signs, but still... I would've noticed the signs if they were there). So, yeah, they should have a translator service they can call and stuff... but I don't think other countries are better, on average.

Apparently the dentist isn't open till noon on Tuesdays, but I did leave them a message explaining and asking if we could reschedule. Next up, should I reschedule the kids' first violin/guitar lesson (currently planned for 3pm tomorrow)? I'm leaning towards waiting and seeing how he does for the rest of the day... (or at least the next few hours).

It's actually not so bad to clean up... it seems mostly like water (contaminated water, obviously, but, not the chunky yuck stuff I think of when I hear vomit). Unfortunately, he just threw up more of it, this time with a bunch of bile (but, almost entirely in the toilet). I didn't really expect that, since he felt better after the first time and I dunno... Oh well. Guess that absolves me of having to take him to TKD this afternoon. Hm... wondering if I should cancel dentist appt tomorrow (for me and Broccoli).

Vopo! Was woken up this morning by Celery that Broccoli's sick. Found Broccoli in the bathroom with vomit on the floor all around the toilet. At least he got closer than Celery did a week or w/e ago... Which does mean that we've gotten Dutch cartoon, CNN 10, and Ted Ed done already thus far. The last story on CNN 10 is about some frontal collision alarm. It's terrible... made me freeze for a few seconds. Now, the smoke detector also tends to make me freeze for a while, but if the goal of an alarm is to get people to take some action, getting people to freeze is a terrible idea. Maybe I'm weird... but still, even if only, say, 10% of the people freeze for a while, that could be worse than not having the alarm to begin with, no? (Of course, if only 0.01% of people freeze, then the alarm probably would be better than no alarm... doesn't help me though. Not that we're likely to get a car with such an alarm other than maybe while renting a car on vacation or something... our current car doesn't even have power windows or power locks) Wrt coffee, I use this, but the French Vanilla version (which I don't see on the website). I see some reviews about it being discontinued, but those are from a year or more ago, and I didn't even start drinking it until early this summer, so :huh:. You'd think they'd want to have all their products listed online. Anyway, I do half water, half milk, and no heating. http://www.kraftrecipes.com/products/maxwell-house-international-haz-1414.aspx Also, an easy no-risk-of-forgetting-the-stove solution to heating a cup of water or w/e would be to microwave it. You could put a sticky note on the microwave saying how long you'd need to microwave a cup (or w/e) of water for for visiting elderly parents or kids or whomever else might forget/be unaware.

I'm a homeschooler... I'm not losing my job to a robot anytime soon. :leaving:

If some close family members were, say, nazis, and they were just regularly bringing up things related to that in discussions with other adults, and the kids' presence was completely incidental and they're not intending to get the kids to agree or act on those beliefs, but I got the impression that the impressionable kids were being impressed... yes, I'd still restrict (or w/e) access.

It's related to jobs if you're a hit man or woman.

Petaflops isn't the same as intelligence, and the fact that computers are pretty good at figuring out what words occur near other words (such as the answer to why erasers are pink) doesn't mean that they're intelligent either. Yes, automation will get rid of certain jobs... but his timeline for singularity is extremely speculative, if it were to even ever happen at all. Finally, he's completely ignoring the possibility of us merging with robots and AI... neuroprosthetics is already a thing for certain things, and for all I know we could gradually replace every part of ourselves (which, imo, is likely the easiest route to the singularity... now, whether that'd be desirable is another matter, as hacking and EMPs etc are things we're currently not susceptible too... of course, with how much cheaper and easier bioengineering is becoming, and the fact that our current hardware is susceptible to viruses, bacteria, and various other things, I'm not sure what would be worse in the long (or even short) run... basically, odds are we're all screwed (fwiw, I'm a pessimist... odds are we're all screwed even without bioengineering OR robots)). Cheerful note to end on: if AI could be conscious, then there's a good chance that we're all just conscious AIs in a simulation of some sort anyway, possibly a forgotten one that's just running the background on some alien's computer.

Depends on what kind of issues we're talking about, but yes, I'd restrict (or flat-out ban) and/or supervise if I thought something was a serious concern. Until what age would depend on the kid. But if someone was trying to put bad ideas into my kids' heads and my kids seemed susceptible... well, I'm their parent - it's my job to protect them. I haven't really had to do this though thus far (the kids aren't allowed to stay with my in-laws anymore, but that's more over their lack of respect for us and their irresponsibility than about them putting bad ideas into their heads).

Why? Do colleges care about that kind of thing? We went to Great Clips and the kids got haircuts. Then we went to Aldi, and we had pizza for dinner (and the kids had carrot sticks as well, and Broccoli is also having a fruit cup, because he didn't like either of the pizzas... I don't entirely blame him - I wasn't planning on pizza for dinner, so the first pizza was pear and blue cheese (Celery liked that one), and the second one was mediterranean (which Celery ate, but didn't really like)). The kids are still watching the Goosebumps movie (which is supposedly leaving Netflix on the 11th... unless it gets renewed). The movie was interesting until it became apparent what the plot was, and now it's just too much action (i.e. boring). The kids seem to like it though.

My kids won't let me (or anyone else for that matter) color their hair. :(

Oh, and Broccoli typed. So, #accomplished.

Oh, and Broccoli also needs a haircut, and I was thinking of doing that after his shower, but then that would get pretty close to TKD time. I've changed my mind though... I think I want to have someone else cut his hair this time, not DIY it. Which doesn't help timing-wise (probably even worse, since I can't control the speed at which a salon does it), but anyway... Celery is almost done with his math for today, and Broccoli had a shower. Now trying to decide whether to go to TKD or drag both kids to Supercuts or w/e.

Not that there's anything I need *now*. I just want it. Maybe I should order more stuff. Not that we live somewhere with same-day delivery for, well, anything other than pizza or Chinese.

I also want my packages, NOW. Rainbow resources should get here tomorrow, and Gymboree's tracking number wasn't working when I looked this morning, even though they said they shipped it on the 2nd, so, I dunno.

I can't decide what to do. Broccoli wants to type, and I promised I'd spend some time teaching him today. He also should take a shower. He also should go to TKD, and I could potentially get Celery a haircut at the same time. Celery also still should do math. All of the above is not impossible, but I just want to be done with the day.

#badacrostics