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To me, wearing a watch at all was always uncomfortable and troublesome, and barely worth the effort just for being able to have a timepiece handy. Upon getting a mobile phone which told the time, I happily gave up wearing a watch. In smartwatches, I see much the same thing as the old-fashioned kind: it's an inconvenient thing strapped to the wrist that doesn't do anything that the phone more conveniently out of the way but still easily accessible in my pocket does.

I have an Asus Zenwatch. Before it, I didn't wear a watch at all, primarily for the reasons you listed. However, I find my smartwatch useful for: seeing what song is playing on Pandora while I'm driving, caller-id, reading text messages without having to pull out my phone, and asking for directions while driving.

I also use the watch as a proximity lock for both my phone and laptop. When I walk away from either, they auto-lock, and when I approach they auto-unlock. I also wrote a watchface that shows items from my calendar around the dial (similar to this).

You are correct that almost everything I've listed can be done with just the phone, but I like the convenience of not always needing the phone on me to interact with it.

Where were you during the election when your conservative brethren were claiming that if Hilary Clinton won the election they may have to resort to "2nd Amendment Solutions"? The right have been pushing gun ownership as an alternative for the vote not going your way for as far back as I can remember... and I've been politically aware since the 80's. You should be celebrating the fact that this loon is taking your arguments seriously, shouldn't you?

This Time
Ballot or Bullet
Musket Solution

In 2012, Ted Nugent said in front of a crowd of revelers that Barack Obama should "suck on my machine gun". He added: "Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch!"

You really have selective attention, don't you? How about just realizing that this behavior is inappropriate on either side of the aisle instead of your tribal myopathy?

Have enemy rain over enemy roads, turn them into muddy mess. Enemy tanks will stuck and sink in mud.

Imagine China doing that if they invade America http://lh5.ggpht.com/_hVOW2U7K...

This happened before...

Actually, he was 100% right.

Looking at NYC because it's the closest peer to Moscow: NYC claims it is impossible to run more than 30 trains per hour on its most crowded subway lines, while Moscow routinely runs 42-44 trains per hour on its lines. NYC subway stops are routinely dumps; Moscow stops are architectural marvels. So it's not surprising that Moscow's subway has 60% more riders per mile.

As for smaller US cities, they typically consist of just buses except for maybe one central corridor. The buses are clean, but they usually run once every half hour or hour, so they are useless for getting anywhere in a timely manner, and almost the only people who use them are those who can't afford cars.

While development does play a role, it uses considerably less landmass than farmland.

Toilet paper and mansions (or even mcdonalds stores) are created from trees that are selectively bread like these:

http://lh5.ggpht.com/-6yvLBQRO...

Notice how they're perfectly straight with no branches? Guess what, normal trees don't grow that way. They grow these trees like this because it results in a better product. Nobody is cutting down forests to make that kind of stuff. If they are, then it's of such a small amount to be insignificant.

Also I'm not a republican, but you can take your greenpeace anti-science propaganda and shove it up your hippie ass.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/-ynMQ0HCD...

the Matrix?

Last mile is not a natural monopoly...

Yes, it is. Unregulated last mile wiring looks like this. It's a "natural monopoly" because the alternative is a dangerous, unmaintainable eyesore.

Yes, I know, a happy medium is at least theoretically possible, but in practice it's still subject to human nature. The correct solution is for the city to install full height concrete cable tunnels everywhere, with trays along the walls, and lease out space in the trays to all comers, including power companies. But despite the fact that humans will always want utilities (that's why they're called utilities), that idea is just too scarily expensive outside of big cities. Which makes no sense, because it's not like the tunnels would ever fall out of use. But humans are humans, and infrastructure with century long payoff periods is intolerable.

Meanwhile the more likely alternative, that of burying multiple cable runs in independent conduits, is still subject to human nature. Competitors having "accidents" with backhoes being the primary example.

So the best solution from a cost and reliability standpoint is to treat it like a natural monopoly. One organization to run fiber everywhere. If you're allergic to that being something called a government, make it a co-op instead. My power company is a co-op, and it works beautifully. I get cleaner, more reliable power than people who are subject to the tyranny of the for-profit power company, at 1/3rd the price, and I can go to the annual meeting and vote for the board of directors. I'd rather have voting control of that organization rather than it be a profit center, be it a government or a co-op.

We've tried it the for-profit way. It has served us very poorly. It's time to try another way.

Because going the other way has ever led to anything but poverty, stagnation, and misery?

Yes, many times throughout history, most recently after the Great Depression.

No one says capitalism is a perfect system. It is just better then anything anyone else has ever come with that can manage a large complex economy in real time and do it dynamically adjusting to any of an infinite number of constantly changing variables.

Sounds familiar

And this is the only information that you need.

I think the AOL comparison was pretty apt.

It may not work well but it's probably as close to perfection possible with humans involved.

Relevant 1-panel comic:

http://lh3.ggpht.com/-h7v6JeQ5...

But electric motors may not have that problem. There is no longitudinal shaft, simply a motor+differential on the front and another on the back.
Some designs by Protean use one motor per wheel, built into the wheel. But this is a lot of un-sprung weight.

Mercedes and Tesla put their motors inboard of the wheel because its simpler. You still end up with short shafts and a shallow angle CV joint (which is a lot more efficient).

"However, I'd like to point out that nothing in your analysis validates wisnoskij's contention that the mass of a black hole has to be considered as existing entirely within this universe, therefore preventing it from acting as a "wormhole" to another one."

A fair comment - I put my entire reply in parantheses because it was meant to pick at one of your statements, rather than the entire post, something I should have made a lot clearer.

With the wormhole thing, the idea basically comes from a maximal extension of a black hole. You can split the spacetime of a black hole into four sections: section I is our universe, asymptotically flat. (So, evidently, not actually our unvierse but let's ignore that for now.) Section II is the future inside the black hole, section III is the past inside the black hole, and section IV is another asymptotically flat region on the "other side" of the black hole. (See here.) This then obviously raises questions about what that other region is and how to get there -- perfectly valid questions, the answer to which is commonly called a wormhole.

Unfortunately it does have to be pointed out that this has arisen because we've maximally-extended the spacetime. In reality, we can already guarantee that section III does not exist, because the extension into the past cannot be made -- the black hole has not existed for all time. This basically screw us, and the realistic situation is more like this.

Of course, this isn't the only way we can envisage getting a wormhole out of GR, but it's one of the best studied.

And also, of course, the singularity does render any speculations -- even using GR -- nothing more than speculations. We simply can't say what goes on there. I know that in loop quantum gravity the singularity issue is rather lessened but I don't actually know what happens there, since it's very much not my field.

You're totally right that Hawking's more recent statements have been conceptual arguments rather than mathematical models. That was the case when he talked about the information paradox, and it's the case now talking about the firewall. That doesn't mean the arguments are not worth listening to, but it does mean there's no reason to think that the issues are finished just because Hawking's deigned to talk about them.

This sounds like one set of animals has better PR than another.

If only you knew how close to the truth you were. It's more like this set has worse PR than the others.

The problem is that they're trying to make the manufacture process cheaper in order to eek out a slightly higher profit. Plus, multitouch is increasing the amount of space necessary to devote to the touchkpad.

I really like the keyboard on my Thinkpad X201s, whose only isue is the Escape key being above the F1 rather than to the left of it, but at least it's at the upper-leftmost corner of the keyboard, so it was easy to adapt to (also, I mapped F1 to Esc in a lot of programs). The other problem with this laptop was the small touchpad. It supported multitouch, but it's tiny, measuring about two inches wide by one inch tall.

Clearing a row of keys obviously translates to increasing the vertical size of the touchpad. I get that, it just needs to be done more intelligently. The X1's touchkpad is about four rows of keys tall and has no buttons. The X201s's touchkpad, including keys, is about 3 1/3 rows tall. There are two rows of function keys up top which are each about two thirds of a row tall. Removing one of them solves the space problem to the millimeter. Don't get rid of those keys though! I think I could survive with that top (function) key row turned into a capacitive row the way the X1 does ... so long as there is still a normal Esc key on its far left (above the tilde, which is to the left of the digits).

How about:

• - Backspace must be the rightmost key on the digits row.
• - Esc must be the upper-leftmost key, one row above the digits' row.
• - Power is fine at the upper-rightmost key.
• - Also retain the standard positions for tilde (left of digits), CapsLk (under Tab).
• - The top row can remain "adaptive" as long as its end keys, Esc and Power, are real.
• - Give a non-multitouch middle-click option, either via emulation (right+left) or three spots at the touchpad's top.
• - Grow down instead of up:
  • - Bring back the numeric keypad's 0-9 and dot (default NumLk off) for 4 rows of arrows/numbers. This places PgUp/PgDn, Home/End, and Ins/Del.
  • - New buttons (like Fn and Compose) can go under each Alt key for easy thumb access
• - Fn is a hardware button, but if you add Compose, it's software (allow setting it as another bucky bit like Hyper or Option)

I've mocked this up and posted it in ascii art (mostly to scale) to pastebin at http://pastebin.com/sEECJKrh. If any laptop keyboard designers are reading this, it's free for you to use. I just want it to be used.

There has never been an occurrence of a variety of human stupidity that Mark Twain has not commented on. One particular quote comes to mind with regard to the anonymous poster above:

"The trouble ain't that there are too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.”

Stay inside, fool.

Maybe if we could get them to wear antenna hats!

Just give 'em all free "We hate Snowden/Assange" shirts. In nice bright colours.

That way when they're lined up against the wall they'll be easier to shoot. That'd automatically raise the standards.

There has never been an occurrence of a variety of human stupidity that Mark Twain has not commented on. One particular quote comes to mind with regard to the anonymous poster above:

"The trouble ain't that there are too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.”

Stay inside, fool.

Maybe if we could get them to wear antenna hats!

... would like to welcome our new robot overlords https://lh3.ggpht.com/-KZjoTlrgflM/UOw83GdTwBI/AAAAAAAAAbw/oq9LaOdvN2Y/s1600/i-for-one-welcome-meme-generator-i-for-one-welcome-our-new-robot-overlords-a4bfd2.jpg

The main lines of evidence for dark matter:

* Galactic rotation curves
* Velocity distribution in clusters of galaxies
* Gravitational lensing in general
* The Bullet Cluster in particular
* The pattern of positions of galaxies in the universe
* The pattern of Baryon-acoustic oscillations in the cosmic microwave background and in the galaxy distribution
* The primordial distribution of light elements in the universe

We know of some kinds of dark matter already: There is a huge amount of neutrinos left over from the big bang, and since these interact very weakly with other stuff, they definitely qualify as dark. Other known kinds of dark matter are black holes, and compact, cold objects made out of baryons (normal matter). So dark matter exists.

The problem is that there isn't enough of the normal kinds of dark matter. To match the pattern in the cosmic microwave background and the amount of hydrogen, helium and lithium in the universe, one needs by far most of the dark matter to be non-baryonic (i.e. not normal matter, but something like neutrinos, but heavier). This kind of dark matter is something we have to postulate exists in order to match observations. But when we do assume it exists, the theory matches observations extremely well. As an example, look at the CMB power spectrum as mesured by Planck. The error bars are so small that you mostly can't see them, and the points lie smack on top of the theory curve. But only if dark matter is included.

And it just so happens that the amount of dark matter that makes theory match the points in that graph also makes the element abundances, galaxy distribution, lensing observations and galaxy cluster velocities work too. Such a coincidence is pretty telling, I think.

But yes, people have tried to avoid dark matter by modifying gravity instead (though nowadays, the most common motivation for modifying graivty is to avoid dark energy). MOND is an example of that. MOND is like normal Newtonian gravity as long as the gravitational acceleration is large (like in the solar system), but instead of falling to arbitrarily low values as distances increase, the gravitational acceleration has an effective minimal value that it approaches as you move away. And such a constant value is just what you need to get the flat rotation curves we observe in galaxies. Which is the problem MOND was invented to solve.

MOND is an elegant solution for galaxies, but it loses all its elegance and predictive power when you try to apply it to the other areas where dark matter shows up. And in some cases it is plainly ruled out as an explanation. MOND, like Newtonian gravity, is a central force, which means that the force points towards the mass that generated it. But in the Bullet cluster, the gravitational force points towards areas with little visible matter, away from areas with much visible matter. This is impossible to fit into MOND. So the Bullet cluster basically killed MOND.

Some of MOND lives on in TeVES, which is an attempt at a relativistic version of MOND. Sadly TeVES has none of the simplicity and elegance of MOND, and while it can explai

Several different experiments have tried to measure dark matter directly in the lab, and the experimental situation is pretty confusing. This plot shows the confidence intervals and exclusion limits for various experiments (but it does not include LUX yet). The shaded regions are confidence intervals, that basically say "we've seen dark matter, and its properties lie somewhere in this region. But the dotted lines say "we haven't seen it, and if it exists, it can't lie above these lines".

What is strange, then, is that all of the detections are in regions that have been excluded by other experiements. LUX just makes the situation even more strained by pulling those upper bounds even lower. Still, those bounds and intervals depend on assumptions about the properties of dark matter, and it may be possible to reconcile the results.

It will be interesting to see what happens to those tentative detections when they get more data. My bet is that in the end some systematic effect will be found to be responsible for the apparent signal. Or (much less likely) that they were just flukes. But who knows?

His opinion is dangerous. ANY argument based on the concept "it's good for the whole of society for this individual to cede his rights" is just plain evil. If that end justifies the means, then you are a short way away from handing the authorities a police state.

this. very much this.

If it is in society's best interest that police have no limits to their power so that they can catch EVERYONE then why burden them with any rules at all?

It reminds me of this old Tom Tomorrow comic from 1994 that Bruce Schneier shared not too long ago: https://lh3.ggpht.com/-g8kBDvnw7I8/UiyosmPpJfI/AAAAAAAAXK8/zaBsi9PU0rg/s1600/tom1994_1.JPG

Look at his left eye: http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Vgd8jBxq8oo/Ua9HT0nPpuI/AAAAAAAAQ1k/oc6uKE5J9Bs/s800/_0272_confidence__M.jpg This was taken on the afternoon of the second day of the conference. The attack happened on the early morning of the first day. fingers

Python's practice of including simple examples with the documentation of virtually every command and function and feature is incredibly handy.

PowerShell is also a great example of a program with lots of good examples included in the documentation.

One problem with outside is permanent death. Several people claiming to have an in with the GM have expressed conflicting opinions of how respawn works, whether it's more like rolling a new character or just a respawn of all characters after the server wipe event.

Another is that the available healing isn't very effective. If you sustain critical injury to a limb, for example, you lose the use of that limb for life. Some characters are even rolled up without all their limbs in the first place.

Protip: Your eyeballs are just fancy radiation detectors. Worried? Keep them closed.

And covered with tinfoil

I thought only cool people do that. And maybe drug dealers.

Later, Hubble snapped this picture of the cloud in question.

The Navy has known they've had this vulnerability for 30 years. They've known they're sitting-ducks, and they have KNOWN it's just a matter of time before the enemy ups the sophistication of their game to where they can sneak something through the defensive posture of a typical battle group. Iran caught us unawares with a cruise missile. (this won't happen again - because we learned a lesson). Al-Q caught us unawares with a speedboat. (honestly, I don't know how you prevent this from happening all the freaking time). Back in the Revolutionary War - 1776 the US planned a primitive submarine to go under British ships, drill into the hull, and/or plant explosives. Had this actually been technically feasible at the time . . . well, THINK about the implications!: https://lh3.ggpht.com/_j_Bcf_6uMS4/RrlFv_jQYdI/AAAAAAAABRk/MX0ia2MCkb8/s400/alg_turtle.jpg ) - there was no defense against this thing, and it was aimed straight at the heart of the British Superpower's Navy.

This is why the Navy is investing in learning ways of changing tactics, changing to different types of vessels, and exploring completely different concepts in how to prosecute naval warfare. They've been thinking about this since the invention of the airplane.

That said; I have had some interesting conversations with an elderly gentleman (retired) who used to work for *a big defense contractor who shall remain unnamed* who, in the 1980's, worked on solutions for tracking incoming ballistic missiles (from an outgoing response vehicle; designed to relay targeting information to interceptors). And he certainly acknowledged that it was obvious to all, (except maybe the politicians), that it was always a numbers-game, and it would always be in favor of the attackers. Smart interceptors (like Iron Dome, today) are always going to be way more expensive (like $90k) than the incoming warhead (Palestinian Shahab, like $300). Try to solve that with Directed Energy weapons, and you have many other problems (not just economic) to solve. (how to get enough power, deal with line-of-sight, weather, atmosphere and haze, recycle time, etc).

It's a problem worth addressing, because it's better than sitting there helpless while the enemy pounds away with ballistic missiles. But in my view - we are still looking at problems that we were looking at in the 1980's. We've come a long way, but some of this stuff is just really hard.

Is that why they had cops with full-size AKs on every street corner in the tourist quarter last time I visited (which was in 2005)?

Have you visited New York lately?

...because the city blocks surrounding it would be most accurately described as something you'd expect to see in the aftermath of a bombing run on the city.

Yeah, we don't have that problem.

Numbers are funny things, especially self-reported ones.

Yes. The CIA and the United Nations are colluding with each other to make places like Egypt, Iran, and Iraq look better.

How about Windows 95 with Microsoft Bob?

I think that's a violation of the Geneva Convention.

Yeah and the Windows Search Puppy is not safe either in China when it ends up on the menu (thanks to Clippy).

You forgot your image link!

Yes, but it looks better. It gives the UI a consistent design metaphor, something to design around besides the default GUI toolkit. I mean, which looks better: the stolen design metaphor, or the default UI elements?

Ideally, a creative artist could come up with something that breaks free from the constraints of reality, and transcends traditional UI design to become something great. Until we have such a Neo-Picasso, using physical objects as a design metaphor is better than design dictated by default UI elements.

Now, if they somehow become more difficult to use because of their metaphor, then that's a true fail. Form must follow function, but in the case of the podcast player, I think they found a good balance.

Nope, it's true, CNN reported it.

This is the watch of the future of the past brought to you by the Usborne Book of the Future:

http://lh5.ggpht.com/jetpackgen/R6BizfyHhcI/AAAAAAAAD18/m4_xLhwZCWs/s800/risto.jpg

The 'risto'.

Rather than the votes cast, take a look at how many people turned up for the debates. I count 19 in that picture, but there are probably a few out of camera shot. The other two hundred just turned up for the vote. In the original Slashdot article about the act, there was copy of that picture but with the caption changed to 'Democracy FAIL'. Somehow, very appropriate.

Dude your forgetting India is where we dump our e-waste. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2071920,00.html

What did you think they would do with it?
BR> They also have built the first fully functional 35$ computer (keybaord, monitor, os,etc) , before the raspberry pie (you have to provide monitor, keyboard, etc). http://blog.zap2it.com/pop2it/2011/10/india-introduces-the-aakash-a-35-dollar-tablet-computer.html

Sure they seem haphazard in their ways http://lh6.ggpht.com/-UhCp2pPblI0/R-1DtL5owuI/AAAAAAAABEw/ZSn9PR4RDCs/P1040295.JPG

But they are a head of a few things, regardless of how they do things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourced_(TV_series)

Of course pie can be square, or even non-regular rectangles. Granted they're usually round but that doesn't prove anything.

Shepherd's Pie:
http://simplyrecipes.com/photos/shepherds-pie.jpg
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_BizpeaUzxq8/S4wrazE1lWI/AAAAAAAABvg/9NTnF3iPNbw/shepards-pie.jpg

Pot Pie:
http://blog.sanuraweathers.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ChixPotPie_0007.jpg
http://www.foodandwine.com/images/sys/201004-r-turkey-potpie.jpg
http://www.jannorris.com/whats-cooking/chicken-pot-pie-recipe-from-set-the-table-diabetic-key-lime-pie-in-todays-sentinel/

Apple Pie:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3059/3063024748_7d252abc83.jpg

Windows Metro Apps are html5+javascript,

Wrong. Metro apps can be in a variety of languages.

'77 Pinto. Fortunately, most of them have exploded into history.
Although, someone made them pretty cool, once.

That's crazy talk. Next you'll be telling me that hackers can't really turn my computer into a bomb!

Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.

To his credit, he does all that he can to postpone that. ~

South and east, eh? And minimal hiking?

  * The pictures I've seen of the beaches near Vík are stunning. :)
  * If you're going to rent a 4x4, you can drive through the Landmannalaugar area.
  * Skógafoss is amazing, and you can camp right by it. Of course, you said you're already going up the Skóga....
  * Svartifoss is a bit more out of the way and smaller, but beautifully framed by columnar basalt cliffs.
  * I've heard the Morsá valley recommended, and it definitely looks like an easy hike, although the pictures I've seen don't impress me as much as elsewhere.
  * Jökulsárlón is an obvious candidate, and kind of hard to avoid anyway ;)
  * I assume you're not planning to get on top of Vatnajökull ;)

But you probably already know that stuff ;) Ooh, actually, here's something you may or may not know: in August, this happens at Jökulsárlón. :) Wish I could be there for it, but I had to choose between that and Bræðslan.

Increasing the money supply is what causes inflation, and we're facing a huge uptick very soon.

FYI, that turned out to be a myth not supported by reality.

Huge uptick in inflation 'anytime soon' has been predicted by hard money economists for the past 3 years non stop: they now have an egg on their face (and angry clients who lost tons of money) plus a huge gaping hole in their model as hyperinflaton (or even a huge uptick in inflation) never materialized.

What we got instead was keynesian predictions proven correct: an economy and an inflation rate balancing on the edge of deflation.

It is time for you re-evaluate your assumptions and your models of how you think about large economies I think. No need to politicize it - just make sure your models agree with the data.

If egypt does get their freedom... I hope they remember we sold the egyptian goverment the weapons being used on civilians right now.

Spread this picture

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_j2FyTmuJ5vg/TUA6bF56vSI/AAAAAAAAC_E/eTFM14ZSws4/s800/slashdot_new_ie7.JPG

Unfortunately we're stuck using IE7 corporate wide. Looks like productivity is about to go up around here :)

Perhaps you should have the experience of being lased at night while flying. The effect is not momentary. Reflected sunlight is not coherent and happens in bright ambient lighting conditions, when your iris is already contracted, so the overall effect is vastly mitigated. Most laser illuminations happen at night, when the eye is wide open, and the desensitization of the eye happens before either the blink or iris reflex can limit exposure.

Lightning can do the same thing- it will completely overload your retina and makes seeing anything hard until your eye re-adapts.

Compared to that, most bird strikes are non-events- you only find out when you find a dent or find a few feathers stuck in a seam.

looks like QWest sent a Cease and Desist letter or something... the photo on Picasa has been replaced with an apology.... sorry Mr Corporate Attorney Sir: http://lh6.ggpht.com/_sU7dL3OFMpY/TTeLgGH6COI/AAAAAAAAM-E/lmPuM9IC_b8/QwestSorry.png

But with what sort of resolution?

And why does this come up in a google search for CMBR images?

Clearly the field needs more study, and I for one think it deserves the funding.

still want to call it harmless?

and this is one of the lowest values measured.