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Dad Describes What Happens When Roomba Meets Dog Poop.

I suppose it can do both though.

Hello! The 80's are calling, they say this is old news!
http://www.neatorama.com/2011/...
https://geeks.media/knight-rid...

The correct answer is that it's a trick question. You need A, C & D at least.

Although, if I had to pick only one, it's C. With enough capital, you can afford to buy the rest.

Hell, with enough capital you can prop the thing up long enough to take it public, then dump it on the market and walk away with millions.

That's what most startup companies do when they realize they don't have customers. The startups that actually have customers are too busy trying to mortgage their future to keep their customers and they get way less capital than they generally need.

When you want something, getting it is easy. When you need something you'll pay through the nose to get it.

Staff forgot to lock up inmates

On Friday night, staff at Norrtalje prison forgot to lock up six inmates in their cells, three of whom are convicted murderers.

The inmates took their chance by baking chocolate cake and watching TV.

"It was one of the most enjoyable evenings we've had in a long time," said one of the inmates.

Recall that they had Waxahachie [scientificamerican.com] and lost the opportunity to be the Cern [wikipedia.org] and find the Higgs first.

The USA is one of the leading contributors to the LHC, spending over $500 million towards it's construction and operation.
http://www.neatorama.com/2008/...

Texas would have been a major center for the world's greatest talents and would have gained all the logistical support business that comes with it

What makes you think it isn't?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

A Vote For Bender Is A Vote To Kill All Humans
http://www.neatorama.com/neato...

He just bends over and takes it without a single complaint

Disgusting.

Any one of these brains could teach us more about ours .
http://www.neatorama.com/2008/...

relevant video:shark observers filming a great white shark from an inflatable pontoon boat. shark attacks and partially deflates boats. shark observers gtfo.

The heavier the phone, the easier it is to break.

Did you mean "the lighter the phone," because if not, I've got a steel phone that begs to differ.

Saying that this launch failure has certainly

Not saying it is a certainty — but rather a possibility, which should not be ruled out.

Russia today is proudly claiming legacy of the country and organization, which once sent agents to kill John Wayne — for trying to drive Communists out of Hollywood. Compared to that, crippling an enemy's space program is a perfectly normal and even noble thing to do.

Personally, my own life would be little different -- except for a big change of not engaging in bouts of unrelated paid employment for expenses. I'd still spend time with my kid and homeschool. I'd still work on free software like the Pointrel system or software related to my wife's free book. I'd still work towards organizing all manufacturing knowledge (OSCOMAK) and work towards designing self-replicating space habitats. I'd hopefully be doing all those software and hardware things a lot better and a lot faster because I'd have more time (without taking on unrelated employment, even as I'd still be happy to help out on other projects just to be helpful and exchange ideas, same as helping any neighbor). I'd probably have lab space for physical experiments which would also speed things up. Another speed boost would (hopefully) be lots of like minded peers who were free to do similar things who I could collaborate with -- including on simulating and building and running free automated tire production factories as I posted on yesterday, especially since people will probably still need tires, even in space habitats: :-)
"Automated FOSS tire plant ideas; simulation tools? "
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

I'd probably feel less compelled to do those things quickly though, so I might do more gardening. I'd still help out with my local historical society.

I think most people could find interesting things to do. It might take some period of "deworking" to make the transition. For kids leaving public school to do "unschooling" (or even just plain homeschooling) a rule of thumb is that it takes at least one month for every month in school to make a transition to independent learning. So, for someone who has worked at a conventional job for a dozen years on top of a dozen years of schooling, it might take a couple years for him or her to start to regain some independent initiative.

I feel it likely a lot of people would just have the time to be better parents, better friends, better neighbors, and better family members. As Bob Black wrote in his essay on "The Abolition of Work":
http://www.whywork.org/rethink...
"Socrates said that manual laborers make bad friends and bad citizens because they have no time to fulfill the responsibilities of friendship and citizenship. He was right. Because of work, no matter what we do, we keep looking at our watches. The only thing "free" about so-called free time is that it doesn't cost the boss anything. Free time is mostly devoted to getting ready for work, going to work, returning from work, and recovering from work. Free time is a euphemism for the peculiar way labor, as a factor of production, not only transports itself at its own expense to and from the workplace, but assumes primary responsibility for its own maintenance and repair. Coal and steel don't do that. Lathes and typewriters don't do that. No wonder Edward G. Robinson in one of his gangster movies exclaimed, "Work is for saps!" "

Is it any wonder you want to avoid such desperate people? Even if most of them are doing a heroic job of trying to hold everything together despite limited time? And the flip side of it is, the people in the USA with lots of spare time, they tend to either be those who are (inherited) wealthy parasites who accept or ignore the huge rich/poor divide or they are people who are poor or old/tired or disabled or mentally ill. Obviously, I'm exaggerating here -- but not by that much. People in Western Europe are more likely to have free time and be able to use it to be better companions and more involved citizens and volunteers.
http://www.neatorama.com/2012/...
http://newint.org/features/201...

That's because Batman isn't gay.

Au contraire, mon frère.

How about, don't ride your totally unsafe, flimsy, difficult to see, acceleration-poor, crumple-bait bicycle on the same pavement with high powered, extremely heavy vehicles?

That will reduce biking accidents. Of course, it also requires common sense, and that... that... oh, right. Right. WTF am I thinking.

Maybe stick to actual bike paths? What, not enough bike paths? After all, lack of appropriate, safe paths doesn't stop me from driving my powered barstool or Riverine in traffic. No, wait, dammit, yes it does. Son of a...

Carry on.

This sort of thing has happened before, and it will happen again. An even better example was when the MV Cougar Ace almost sank, and 4700 brand new Mazda cars hung at a 60 degree angle for several months. They never moved, and they were all in seemingly perfect condition.

Mazda chose to err on the side of caution, rather than risk a lawsuit. Or even worse, there was a very valid concern that they would become "Katrina Cars". A coat of paint, and they would be bundled up and sold in some other unsuspecting country. (On a side-note, the destruction process is really cool!.)

With waivers not being worth the paper they're printed on, it's simply not worth the risk of getting sued.

And finally, there's the "soft damage" to take into consideration? Remember the kid in preschool who "had cooties"? That kid KEPT those cooties, right up until graduation day in high school. Costco might never allow a single jar to hit their normal distribution system, but just the simple fact that the peanut butter even exists at all, is a risk that someone, somewhere, will say, "Whoa, Costco peanut butter might have salmonella."

Play "Telephone" with that for a while, and suddenly Costco can't pay someone to take a jar of peanut butter. This is actually a very safe, very beneficial tactic for Costco.

Now consumers can be absolutely guaranteed that they will never have to think about whether Costco peanut butter is safe.

And in retail, that's money in the bank.

Already been done: http://uploads.neatorama.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Fred-Flintstone-Barney-Rubble-Car.jpg

Wasn't this the guy who said he had internet controllable lights but in fact it was just randomly flashing lights?

[John]

Yes. http://www.neatorama.com/2006/12/03/controllable-christmas-lights/

But that methane doesn't *stay* at the bottom of the ocean:
http://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/08/bermuda-triangle-mystery-solved/

Especially with global warming in process, this will only accelerate, and is in fact a navigational hazard.

And yes, I do accept that global warming is real, and unstoppable. I have some doubts that humans caused it entirely, but the facts that it is occurring and that we may well have played some role in making it worse are undeniable. But it's far too late for the blame game. The only real solution is to start planting more food.

I notice the Nexus 7 is optimistic about selling 5 Million tablets by new year [For reference Apple sold 14million tablets last quarter]

As with the smartphone market where up until the Galaxy S3, no Android phone outsold the iPhone yet Google is mopping up the market share, so will the tablet market go. No time soon will any single Android tablet outsell the mighty iPad but believe that very soon Android will ship on more tablets than iOS does and when the tipping point is reached, the iPad will find its rightful place in the inevitable high margin//small share niche Apple seems to love so much on the desktop.

I was reading about Adidas and Puma http://www.neatorama.com/2012/11/19/Family-Feud-Adidas-vs-Puma/#more just today, and how part of their success was getting Jesse Owens to wear their shoes.

>

That doesn't bother me so much. I hope Owens loves his leather and rubber Adidas/Puma amalgamation since at least he actually wears what he is endorsing. If he thought the shoe would slow him down, no amount of money would put a pair on his feet. Compare that to what Oprah (a highly influential personality) is doing. The woman is basically lying her ass off pretending to be a Surface user when the reality is she wields an iPad. It's sad that the generation of cynics will just think business as usual. The woman is a hypocrite and a fucking liar. Simple as that.

Its oddly Ironic reading Apple propaganda, about Microsoft Propaganda. In fact it makes my head hurt. Thank heavens both these ghastly companies are losing relevance. I notice the Nexus 7 is optimistic about selling 5 Million tablets by new year [For reference Apple sold 14million tablets last quarter]

The sad second part of the the story celebrity endorsement is simply business as usual, I was reading about Adidas and Puma http://www.neatorama.com/2012/11/19/Family-Feud-Adidas-vs-Puma/#more just today, and how part of their success was getting Jesse Owens to wear their shoes. The only thing that has changes is the world is giving more power to celebrity endorsements as people "like" what they are told to like books; movies; products...and you have to go along to fit in. I personally believe the hipster fashion is simply a way of liking thinks and pretending they are irony [although to be fair I'm the only one that thinks so].

Why is this modded down? Stephen Hawking would agree.

Incorrect, take a colour sampler to the "blue" tiles on the left cube and the "yellow" tiles on the right cube here, and tell me you didn't believe they were blue/yellow until you saw the colour readings.

No, he's saying that your perception of colour is affected by the colour of things around them... See for example this optical illusion

Take a colour sampler to the "blue" tiles on the cube on the left, and the "yellow" tiles on the cube on the right... You'll find they're both actually grey.

Except that it's not actually xkcd, and it's a repost because the original site is blocked at my work, but here's the comic anyway.

"Sure, more e-books are bought, but how many of those are read?"

You mean people put them on imaginary shelves so that it looks pretty?

Reading is sort of the point with e-books, their value as status symbols is nil, you can't impress people like with leather bound volumes, bought by the yard to decorate your condo. You can't use them as paper weights nor use them to flatten dried flowers, you can't use them as door stoppers, you can't level old tables with them, you can't hide cash in them nor hollow them out to hide your stash.

I pasted a link below with other stuff you can't do with ebooks.

http://www.neatorama.com/2011/04/27/cool-non-literary-uses-for-books/

You convinced me: unless I can print it, I'm not going to buy an ebook ever.

"Sure, more e-books are bought, but how many of those are read?"

You mean people put them on imaginary shelves so that it looks pretty?

Reading is sort of the point with e-books, their value as status symbols is nil, you can't impress people like with leather bound volumes, bought by the yard to decorate your condo.
You can't use them as paper weights nor use them to flatten dried flowers, you can't use them as door stoppers, you can't level old tables with them, you can't hide cash in them nor hollow them out to hide your stash.

I pasted a link below with other stuff you can't do with ebooks.

http://www.neatorama.com/2011/04/27/cool-non-literary-uses-for-books/

...if scorpions could fly.

G.

Exactly. How exactly does the scorpion using bumps on their skin to be less aerodynamic apply to airplanes? Planes already exist with "shark skin" texture to reduce drag, there was even a Mythbusters episode about it.

And why does the wikipedia article read exactly like this news story? "Androctonus australis is a hardy North African desert scorpion. Unlike Most other animals that live in deserts, Androctonus does not dig burrows to protect itself from a sandstorm. Instead, it can withstand sandstorms powerful enough to strip paint off steel, without any apparent damage."

Really? That's the best first three sentences for a encyclopedia entry of this creature? Other animals include a detailed description and locations they are found. Strange that the Wikipedia entry was created just 6 days ago.

Methinks slashdot and the economist has been duped by this "first time accepted submitter" elloGov

The Library of Congress has " roughly 10 terabytes of uncompressed textual data." Wikipedia

12 terabytes is ~5 billion sheets of paper (typewritten), so assuming a linear relation then 10 terabytes = ~4.16 billion sheets. Neatorama

So with Wolfram Alpha this is about 20,800 metric tons, so a bit less than a quarter of the Costa Concordia gross weight. Wolfram Alpha

Well look at the bright side, being solar powered, we know this craft won't be used by the fly by night airways.

As for steam engine airplanes, they've been around for over a hundred years according to wikipedia.
YouTube of one in action here, from 1933.
http://www.neatorama.com/2010/01/14/steam-powered-airplane/

No one has really tried using modern steam technology using modern materials in quite a while.

Note that Discovery Channel is not owned by ESPN, ABC, Disney, or any other third party. It's owned by Discovery, Inc. - full stop. National Geographic Channel, likewise, is not owned by any third party. It's a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Geographic Society.

Right about Discovery, wrong about Nat Geo.

Last I checked, it was owned by News Corp... (well, most of it anyway)

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/07/07/who-owns-what-on-television/ (Somewhat dated)
http://www.cjr.org/resources/?c=newscorp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Channel

However, people have been using it for decades as slang for a passenger vehicle, which proves my point that the meaning of a word is defined by how people use it. Hence, today's definition of a "smartphone" is not the same as the one 2 decades ago. Meanings change. Those earlier phones are no longer considered smartphones by people - they're at best "feature phones".

how words change
more examples
more

Think of it - if someone said they were gay 100 years ago, it meant something completely different. Meanings change.

A more recent example - the definition of marriage no longer means a union between a man and a woman, but between two people or either sex or gender (and some places recognize 3 or more people as well).

You can order it from the ACME catalog.

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/05/14/the-original-acme-catalog/

Oh dear, you've attacked the sacred almighty science reputation ! Kill the traitor ! Oh wait, it's climate "science" (I'm of the exact sciences persuasion, and well, they don't measure up) ! Exterminate the traitor, slowly, neuter his dog and kill his family !

You know, this repuation.

The sad fact is, attempt to hold up climate science to the standards of other exact sciences, like physics, and nothing remains. Predictions made by climate scientists in the past "with 95% certainty" (and higher) have failed to materialize. Do that in physics, and your theory gets laughed out of every conference.

What is by far the most disgusting bit about climate science is that "skeptic" has become an insult. Imho, the basis of science is doubt, and so everybody should be a climate skeptic, even when it comes to established theories. If anyone needs more proof that this science is overly politicized, there you have it. Everybody also knows that this is done for political reasons (the climate treaties) ...

this is disgusting

Is this in the United States of the World? The Euro is quite popular.

And how is this hiring? http://www.neatorama.com/category/society-culture/languages-society-culture/ Alexia Sloane is only ten years old, but she got the opportunity to work as an interpreter at the European Parliament in Brussels. Alexia received an exception to the age 14 minimum rule because she is fluent in English, French, Spanish, and Mandarin, and is now learning German -and she does a great job interpreting. Did I mention that Alexia is blind? Alexia has been tri-lingual since birth as her mother, a teacher, is half French and half Spanish, while her father, Richard, is English. She started talking and communicating in all three languages before she lost her sight but adapted quickly to her blindness. By the age of four, she was reading and writing in Braille. When she was six, Alexia added Mandarin to her portfolio. She will soon be sitting a GCSE in the language having achieved an A* in French and Spanish last year. The girl is now learning German at school in Cambridge. Alexia has wanted to be an interpreter since she was six and chose to go to the European Parliament as her prize when she won a young achiever of the year award.

or SAL 9000

Is not to inspire future scientists. It is that every kid with an IQ of 90 or more is told that they can be a doctor, lawyer, or scientist, and allocated resources as if they could, when only the 1st percentile or less can actually fill these positions.

I don't see how 'movies' solves this problem: instead, it makes people with Wal-Mart skills, think that they *should* have a better lot in life, and resent that something is wrong if they don't, and spend money trying to get degrees that are meaningless, and so forth ad infinitum.

According to From Hauser, Robert M. 2002. "Meritocracy, cognitive ability, and the sources of occupational success." CDE Working Paper 98-07 (rev). Center for Demography and Ecology, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin. Over 10% of social scientists, people in computer related occupations, materials engineers and a non-negligible number of university professors, electrical engineers, lawyers, hard scientists, and general engineers have an IQ under 100. To be fair, though, the bottom 10% of physicians have an IQ under 113

This hardly relegates the jobs of scientist, lawyer or even doctor to the top 1%. With the exception of doctor, which requires being in the top 20%, all of these jobs could be obtained by someone with a sub 100 IQ.

That said, it is not very likely that your theoretical 90 (bottom 25%) is going to get a job outside of sales, police, electrician, mechanic etc.

That inconsistency is part of the trouble with the awesome bar. I don't go to Accuweather too often, but I've been there in the last couple of weeks. If I type in 'ac' or 'www.ac', my options are, in order:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=662909&page=2
http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=userinfo&user=
http://www.neatorama.com/2010/10/07/new-software-adjusts-actors-body-shapes-automatically/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Neatorama+(Neatorama)
https://chaseonline.chase.com/MyAccounts.aspx
http://www.accuweather.com/
http://www.lenovo.com/us/en/#ss

I find this asinine, but some people like it. That's fine. Give me the option to have something sane and consistent. As someone else mentioned elsewhere, if they would just put the items with exact matches at the beginning of the domain first on the list (or give the option for it), it would help a lot. Then they'd just have to work on how slow it is.

Hypothesis: Mysterious trail is from scheduled flight.

By definition, the hypothesis is a contradiction: Something that is scheduled could not be mysterious and appear in the headlines.

That's because you have misstated the hypothesis.

Hypothesis: Trail that is mysterious to some observers is from scheduled flight.

If it's a scheduled flight then people would have probably seen it before.

Please keep in mind that people have identified the moon as a freaking UFO. (And this is not an isolated case.)

Venus has often been mistaken for an airplane or UFO -- during WWII, there were cases where anti-aircraft batteries tried to shoot it down.

The fact that people have seen a thing before, even hundreds of times, does not mean that they can't look at it later and go, "WTF is that?!" We are an unreliable bunch of observers.

Defaulting to cautionary surprise is evolution in action: if you're not sure if you've seen something before, assume you don't know what it is, that it's strange and dangerous, that it might eat you. This improves your chances of surviving to have offspring. But it's not really good behavior for a technological culture. Resolving this conundrum is left as an exercise for the species.

It depends a lot on where you go, how you get there[2] and many other factors :).

But yeah, eating out or in a workplace cafeteria[1] can actually be more efficient than doing grocery shopping and cooking for yourself - you might even waste more food on average than a well-run cafeteria (I know people who buy lots of stuff on sale, and have to throw a lot of it away because they are way past expiry, lose track, or lose the desire to eat the same thing, or the purchased portions just don't match well with "healthy serving portions").

In many high density cities, having your own kitchen is a luxury. If you're single you wouldn't be using your kitchen that much. In contrast a workplace cafeteria's kitchens would be in use many times a day or even night (for 24/7 places).

[1] workplace cafeterias don't have to be bad:
Apparently Google has some decent ones: http://www.neatorama.com/2009/02/24/googles-cafeteria-doesnt-suck/
And Microsoft too: http://buckleyplanet.typepad.com/cafetour/cafeteria_tour_2006/

[2] for some figures:
The average sedentary person needs about 2000 Calories = 8 megajoules a day.
1 litre of petrol has 34 megajoules, and a car can travel about 8-10 km on one litre.

I assume it costs more than 8 megajoules of petroleum to farm, transport, cook that 2000 Calories worth of food for you (boiling 1 litre of water already costs 314 kilojoules). So your own transportation costs might not be that bad in comparison.

Actually it only sounds good if you put an EPCOT spin on it, otherwise it just sounds like Soylent Green.

Well you could put a Google spin on it:

http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2006/11/new_google_cafeteria_crushes_c.html
http://www.neatorama.com/2009/02/24/googles-cafeteria-doesnt-suck/

Basically Google staff can work, eat at Google. All Google needs is to add decent living quarters and they can do a "less evil Foxconn" :).

Beaver's consciously build dams. They can't stand the sound of running water.

http://www.neatorama.com/2009/06/18/interesting-facts-about-beavers/

So I guess that they are not natural.

Calvin's dad looks like Watterson's dad, which would explain the resemblance. Watterson himself looks much more like Uncle Max.

If they were really worried about criminals, they would have called in Chuck Norris to protect them.

That won't happen, and this is why. Japan was forced to build robots to keep costs down. In manufacturing, there are three kind of builders: The expert craftsman who is probably well paid to do excellent work, the robot who can drill a hole in precisely the same place 10,000 times, and the poorly paid factory worker, for whom really, really good quality control is needed. Guess which one China employs? It is a fact that a part assembled by machine will, given the same effort put into QC, put out a much better product than the same part assembled by low wage humans. low quality parts=poor system reliability.

Why is there no active after-market for diamonds? It is estimated that the public holds about 500 million carats of gem diamonds - if a significant portion of the public begins selling, then the price of diamond would plummet. To prevent this from happening, the diamond industry spent a huge sum in making diamonds "heirloom" properties to be passed down for generations, keeping the price of diamond artificially high (so people wouldn't be tempted to unload them for fear of losing money) and discourage jewelers from buying diamonds from the public.

Gives a whole new meaning to "Got Root"!

As well as home gardening and watching your investment grow.

This is probably faster then growing this bar. Maybe more will read Swiss Family Robinson now or again.

This page shows several interesting trees including a number that were custom-shaped.

Neatorama shares Office Snapshots Web site that has a collection of interior office photographs of various popular/well known companies. It is generally from Web/Tech companies.

Maybe not but the reverse has basically happened already.