This seems like a pretty niche feature set, so if anyone does make it, expect to pay a lot more for it. But I really don't understand some of these requests, and sound pretty stubborn. Here's my take on each:
1. Removable battery
Seems nice in theory, but all it does is take up more space that could otherwise be used by a bigger, longer lasting battery. It also creates restrictions in where components can be placed, because the battery must always be accessible to the user. But there are workarounds for non-removable batteries. If battery life is a concern, you have battery extending cases (where there is an extra battery built into the case) or portable chargers you can throw in your bag. If you are worried about replacing a battery that no longer holds a charge, you could still replace the battery, just a little more involved. Really only something you should need to do every 2 years or so.
2. Physical keyboard (e.g. BB KEY2)
Every once in a while someone comes out with one, and the market overwhelmingly rejects it. All of my friends/colleagues who are former Blackberry die hards have moved on and never looked back. Typing on a tiny physical keyboard has never been pleasant. Learn how to use Swype. It is much more efficient. Compared to a physical keyboard, it is faster, easier to do with one hand, and also pretty easy to do without looking (still should proof-read, though, but that's the case no matter what type or size keyboard).
3. Not ridiculously thin
Define "ridiculously". It needs to fit in your pocket right? That's where most people keep their phones. Thinner means you can fit more in your pocket. If you say, "well I'm just going to slap a giant case on it anyway like an otterbox", well, then I guess thin is even more important so that a phone+case doesn't take up too much room. Is thin ever a detriment, though? It may not be important to you, or a major selling point, but do you actually have a minimum thickness that you simply could not ever go under?
4. Not ridiculously large
I'm with you on this one. I have smaller hands and I like to one-hand my phone. I used to travel a ton for work, so I needed something I could use while walking through an airport dragging a carry-on behind me. 5 inches is my max. I really liked my 4.7" original Moto X, though. That was perfect. Luckily, manufacturers seem to have gotten the message. Pixels, Galaxies and iPhones all come in 2 sizes now and the smaller one isn't just a cheaper, slower, inferior in every way version of the bigger one. Hopefully this trend continues and other manufacturers with more differentiated feature sets follow.
5. No infinity edge
I'm curious about your issue with an infinity edge. You don't want a phone that's ridiculously large, so an infinity edge only helps with this. You can pack more screen real estate into a smaller overall phone. If you mean like the screens Samsung has on the S9 and introduced in the "Edge" series, I get it, but Samsung is the only one doing this, so not hard to avoid them.
6. No notches
Legitimate complaint. I'm not a huge fan either, but I'm warming up to it. I guess it depends on how you look at it. Does it take away usable screen space, or does it open up more screen space that would otherwise be a large bezel? Again this goes back to size. You don't want ridiculously large, but this is a way to pack more into a smaller size. There is a lot of experimenting going on here (that's essentially what this article is about - Samsung is trying out a bunch of stuff to see what sticks) and I like the way OnePlus has kept it minimal. At the same time, though, I thought the very slim bezels on the Pixel 2XL, Pixel 3 (small size) and Samsung S9 are really nice and didn't see a need to gain an extra few millimeters.
This comes full circle when someone creates restaurant seating areas with drink service but no kitchens and facilitates easy ordering from any nearby delivery kitchens.
This is actually already happening with New Jersey micro-breweries. The new tiny breweries popping up with on-site tasting rooms aren't allowed to sell food, so they make it really easy for you to bring food from elsewhere. Everything from menus and maps of delivery/takeout friendly places nearby to food trucks in the parking lot and everything in-between.
For a little background, NJ laws previously made opening a brewery in NJ very difficult, but recent changes have spurred a lot of new microbreweries popping up. However, the laws in NJ are still a bit strange. In most other states, micro-breweries will run brew pubs to give their beers more exposure and also use food sales to help pad profits, but in NJ, they are not allowed to sell food and can only have a "tasting room", not a bar. What's the difference between a tasting room and a bar? For a tasting room patrons come for the free brewery tour and then are free to purchase beer at the bar. And the tours are usually a joke. One place literally says, "Look in there. That's where we make beer. Please proceed to the tasting room." (For the beer nerds like myself, you can still have a very in depth tour of their operation if you like). But the atmosphere is usually pretty great. Most have a very communal feel that try to include the biergarten concept. Feels like hanging out at a backyard BBQ than going to your typical bar. Some are dog friendly and kid friendly, too.
...hail yourself a new autonomous taxi to come pick you up and tell the owner of the first autonomous taxi to send a tow truck. I wouldn't be surprised if the car sends its own distress signal for service and a new car for the passenger automatically without any passenger input. Sounds like a better experience than your non-autonomous car. If you break down on the side of the road, you sit and wait for the tow truck.
I turn off Google Home timers/alarms by saying "Hey Google, Thank You". Not only does it work for turning off the alarm, but it just seems more pleasant then yelling "Stop!" Plus, she seems so enthusiastic about setting the timer to begin with, it's hard not to be polite back.
Maybe not directly, but Velcro is used by the military in many ways, one of which being to strap on body armour. The velcro enhances the utility of the body armour, which enhances the effectiveness of the weapon (a.k.a. the soldier).
Was going to say the same thing. If you walk into a Costco, you typically have only 2 -3 choices of brands for a particular good. Sometimes no choice. But Costco has found that people typically buy more and enjoy the experience more. This is a win for everybody. The customer is happier/less stressed about their choice, Costco gets more revenue from people buying more, and Costco also can keep their costs down by simplifying their inventory. I think a key component here, though, is that Costco has done a good job of whittling down the choices for us. If I'm buying ketchup, I have a choice between the cheap store brand, Heinz. Everyone knows Heinz. It's a safe choice. In cases where there is no choice, it's always the most well known/popular brand. What I don't have to do is choose between 3 crappy or unknown brands.
Thanks, it sounds pretty interesting. However, once again, you have started with the "How" and not with the "Why". Reading a list of specs, you are requiring the consumer to piece together on their own "...so I guess this one would be faster?" Don't make the consumer form those conclusions because they can't be relied upon to make them. Someone technically inclined enough probably will, but sounds like this router could bring value to more than just techies. If you said instead, "Our router allows much greater speed compared to any other router at this price point." Now you have a non-techies interest. If they ask how, then you say, "While most routers do not have a fiber connection. Ours does." The consumer says, "Oh awesome. You have the best router for the price. That translates to an awesome value for me."
If you want any consumers outside of tinkerers to care about open hardware, you need to explain to them what value they can get from open hardware compared to closed hardware, especially if there is a cheaper closed source option that I can reflash with open source firmware. Are there enough people out there that will both know the value and seek it out if it simply says "open hardware" somewhere in the specs without any further explanation? Maybe. You need to start with the "Why" not with the "How". The "Why" is "You can do x, y and z with our router [better|cheaper|at all|whatever], compared to other routers." The "How" is "via open hardware."
I know this may come off as "bullshit marketing speak" to some, but for me, I honestly don't know what open hardware would do for me. If your product is basically a router running DD-WRT/OpenWRT/Tomato, it better cost me no more than if I bought a Netgear and flashed it myself. If it costs more, what else am I getting other than convenience? I can't speak for everyone, but I have a feeling that those that already know that value of open hardware are also those that are very comfortable reflashing their own.
Google attempted something similar back in 2001. Larry Page up and fired all of his project manager (in front of all of the employees!) and left it to the engineers to form their own teams, and pretty much just manage themselves. It didn't last long. Per this article:
Page’s reorganization didn’t last long either. While some engineers thrived without supervision, problems arose. Projects that needed resources didn’t get them. Redundancy became an issue. Engineers craved feedback and wondered where their careers were headed.
Eventually, Google started hiring project managers again.
This was also a big contributing factor to Page and Brin being relegated to the kids table for a while until they were mature enough to run the company on their own.
I don't think they are planning on using these on actual golf courses. As you may know, golf carts are not used exclusively for golf. Any resort, or business with a large "campus" uses them to move people and objects around. Think about something like a large movie studio with lot of enclosed acreage and lots of different buildings that people need to get to and from relatively quickly, all while navigating through tons of foot traffic and other vehicles. There are even some gated communities (and even small islands) where people get around primarily by golf cart. The nice thing about these settings is that you don't need to go very fast (e.g, all under 25 mph) so there is a much lower margin of error. Getting hit by an autonomous golf cart is much less serious than an autonomous car. This will allow them to get into real world service sooner than an autonomous road car and hopefully, provide all of the wonderful data and lessons learned to the autonomous road car effort.
Why should people that don't drive as much subsidize those that do through road taxes?
They don't. This is what taxes on gasoline are for. It is a usage based tax, though not the most accurate when you take into account the variation in vehicle fuel economy. Every now and then you do hear someone suggest that we tax based on actual miles driven (which I'm a fan of), but never seems to get too much traction. We all pay a flat "access" fee, though.
Why should people without children at the age to attend school subsidize those that do through school taxes?
Because contributing more tax dollars to the schools can mean better schools. The better the schools, the more desireable the community. The more desireable the community, the more your property (and everyone else's in the community) is worth. The more your property is worth, the more you can directly benefit from the sale of said property. Not to mention the intangibles that come with living in a more upscale community that you might actually appreciate. I guess that's the ethical egoist's rationalization at least. "Look out for #1."
I agree this article was light on details and heavy on speculation. I read a more complete article yesterday regarding this. The benefit realized by 3D printing the tablet as opposed to standard tablet manufacturing is, yes, the precision dosing, but also the specific layering technique the 3D printing enables. They are able to stack alternating layers of active ingredient and inactive ingredient in a very precise fashion. This allows the drug to be dissolved and absorbed MUCH more rapidly than if it was manufactured using standard methods. Since this is for an epilipsy drug, this is a major advantage over competing drugs.
I think the more immediate changes are going to be that more and more manufacturers will take advantage of 3D printing, and not just as a way to reduce costs, but as a way to make drugs we weren't able to before. While printing custom dosages for each patient sounds great, there are still a lot of regulatory hurdles, since the majority of drugs are approved one dose at a time. There is some precedence though with things like radioactive pellets (for cancer treatment), which are often custom ordered, but those are regulated as medical devices, not pharmaceuticals. Even still, I would thing the custom dosing would really just be a range of specific dosages that a prescriber can choose from to have printed and the manufacturer would have to gain approval for each dosing and being able show clearly when and for whom each dose should be used.
Which is why patents need clear duration limitations...
And they do. It's 20 years from the date of filing. But you must also keep in mind that the pharmaceutical industry is a highly regulated and that the clock is ticking on your patent before you receive FDA approval to actually sell it. It can take between 8-12 years from the time you file your patent to when you can market your drug. That means that you may only have an 8 year window to recoup all of your R&D costs on that one product (and all of the the ones that failed) and turn a profit. That is why proprietary drugs can be so expensive (supply/demand and many other factors of course also comes into play). Once you hit the "patent cliff", then the generics will pounce, and begin producing and selling your product for less than it costs you to make. You have some options, though. You could compete with the generics. This is a tough one. While most will for a while, their market share will quickly erode due to the cost disadvantage until they pull out of the market altogether. But even though you have pulled out, you still need to "support" the product including any legal liability, even if the patient took the generic version. Pfizer is one of the few with the manufacturing capability (and ability to absorb losses) to actually compete on price with generics, and it was pretty groundbreaking when they did for Lipitor. You could try to get over the counter approval, but this is only an option for products that meet certain criteria and the costs to get the approval might not make sense. You will need to revise your product labels (packaging + the instructions that come with it) and get them approved (more painful than you might think) and also prove that a patient can safely self-diagnose and self-administer the product. Then there is the more controversial option, which is to request an extension of your patent or exclusivity. There are a lot of ways to extend exclusivity (which is distinct from patent), but I won't get into all of that here. For patent extension, typically a company will re-formulate the product in some way. It could be a change in dosage, it could be a new delivery system (injection -> tablets) or an "extended release" version. There is a valid argument to be made that these are simply stall tactics to milk the patent system for longer patent protection (and more profits), but they do have to be a legitimate improvement/benefit for the patient, so it does encourage some level of innovation, even if some feel it is not much.
So what I'm saying here is, patents are vital to pharmaceutical companies being able to actually make a profit on all of their hard work and there ARE limits on how long they can. Without the patent protection, I can see 2 scenarios: you could have "0 day generics", where the generic is available so quickly after a drug gets approval that the company that did all of the work of the work of identifying the compound, putting it through 3 phases of clinical trials and all of the other work necessary to gain FDA approval would be screwed. Or you would have companies treating the products as trade secrets, which would be difficult in the first place given the need for FDA approval, and likely mean no generics (and higher prices). Also, those discoveries would not be shared with the rest of the world, making it more difficult for competitors to improve upon or leverage the knowledge for something completely new.
Agreed. Google+ was launched at a perfect time to gain mass adoption. Complaints about Facebook seemed at an all time high and the "Facebook is uncool/loosing users/dead" stories seemed more frequent than usual. When everyone saw that there was an alternative that gives them better control over their posts, we were all saying "sign me up!!!". But even if you could get an account under the invitation only version, you probably didn't have any friends there. And as you said, by the time anyone could sign-up, the hype had died. They pretty much had a tiny window to get mass adoption and they blew it.
This.
You need to do formal business requirements gathering on what the solution should do, regardless of whether it is a custom solution or off the shelf. This is a collaborative process that you need to drive. You also need to speak their language. This is not a technical discussion, it is a list of business wants/needs. You shouldn't even call it a specification, this is before the specification. An example business requirement is, "I must be able to assign volunteers to one or more categories" or "The system must be able to generate a report showing the sign-up history of all users." Process mapping can go a long way to helping identify requirements. Talk through the process of how volunteers need to sign up, administrative activities, etc. and what a system would need to do at each point. They have been doing this process already, so it should be easy to map out. You may even identify places where the process can be improved. Once you have a requirements list, you need to have them prioritize each requirement. This is critical for you since you are trying to convince them to go off-the-shelf. Each requirement is either Must Have or Nice to have. You can do a 1-3 scale too if that works better. If those edge cases they feel aren't addressed by off the shelf solutions are Must Haves, then, and only then, do you price out a custom solution along with all of the pros/cons of doing so. The price may make them change their minds on those edge cases. If it turns out those edge cases are Nice to Have, then you have what you need. You have essentially lead them into making the decision that you want them to make.
As a male, I would have loved to have this type of coverage through my employer for my spouse. When my wife and I decided to have a baby, we had to go the IVF route due to a condition my wife has. Since we knew we wanted to have a second, but the odds of doing so naturally were very low, we chose to freeze/store the extra eggs they retrieved as part of the procedure. My employer's health plan had a maximum lifetime coverage of $25,000 for fertility services, but it does not cover the cost to freeze and store eggs. Freeze and storage cost us $1200/year. When money was really tight, you really start to weigh your options as to whether you keep storing and pay that high price, or quit and free up the cash.
I think my anecdote also highlights a different use case for egg storage. While the summary, and most of the comments here focus on using the egg storage as a means of delaying having children, this can also be vital to whether you can have children at all or how many you can have. But I'm not surprised at the narrow focus of discussion. This seems to be the case with most controversial women's health issues. The birth control coverage issue I found particularly irritating. The argument was solely about whether employers should be "subsidizing a promiscuous lifestyle" yet hardly ever made mention of the fact that a large minority of women take birth control for a wide array of other reasons that are directly related to their health and well being. But that's mostly related to a woman's period, hormones and disorders/diseases that affect a woman's reproductive system and "that's totally disgusting. Shut up and go away!"
There always seems to be a pendulum in the cheap labor vs. automation decision. When a lot of manufacturing jobs were being outsourced to China, many looked at what those jobs were and saw that they were very repetitive and low skill jobs. They would then get a puzzled look on their face. They get that a Chinese person can do the same task cheaper than an American person, but why have a person do it at all? This job is perfect for automation! The reality, though, is that many Chinese people toiling away is still cheaper than designing, building and maintaining an automated system (i.e. robot). Of course, that still didn't stop someone from trying to figure out how to automate such a task, and now the costs of automating have significantly dropped. At the same time, as the economy of China is stimulated, the quality of life and cost of living rise, so rises the wages. Automation then looks like the cost effective option. The cycle will continue with the next cheap labor market and task that is only newly and expensively automated, and so on and so forth.
Chill out dude, I was complimenting you and agreeing with your position that this is all speculation from a historically unreliable source, so we should hold our comments until the actual announcement. Not everyone on the internet is out to attack you.
And the award for most prescient poster goes to Teancum. NASA has made the official announcement and it the contract is going to Boeing AND SpaceX (http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasa-gives-6-8-billion-boeing-spacex-apollo-style-spaceships-n204706), thus making this entire Slashdot story completely useless. Hey contributors/editors, if you see a story with inside information on something that will be announced within hours, why not just, you know, wait for the official announcement.
Assuming you have an option to switch ISPs (and I realize that many of you don't), it's actually pretty easy to do, even with leaving Comcast. This is really just an order of operations issue. Most people will decide they want to switch, call up their incumbent ISP to cancel their service, and then order their new service. Seems logical, but for best results, flip it around. Once you have decided to switch to the other guy, call the other guy first. The other guy will then set up your account, come to your house and do all of the installation, port your phone number over (if applicable) and then once you have verified that the service is working to your satisfaction, you call up the incumbent and tell them to cancel. This is how I switched from Comcast to Verizon a few years ago. Granted, I still dealt with an extremely defensive (anti)cancellation person on the phone, but it was a much more straightforward conversation. It went something like this...
Me: Hi. I switched to Verizon, cancel my service
Comcast: Why do you want to cancel?
Me: Your service doesn't work, I've had a tech out here 3 times and they didn't fix the issue. Fios has already been ordered and installed and it is working, which is something I could never have said for you.
Comcast: defensive statement...yada yada..Verizon installed a new wire to your house, that's why it's fixed
Me: Yeah, maybe you should have tried that on one of your 3 service calls, but you didn't. Anyway. I 'm not going to argue with you. I'm already receiving Verizon services, Comacast services have been physically disconnected. Cancel my account.
Comcast: Fine. Done.
And that was it. Hell I could have kept it even briefer if I had been prepared for such a defensive attitude, but even still, since you have physically disconnected their service and are already paying for their competitor, you know they have a snowball's chance in hell of getting you to agree to sending another tech over to re-connect Comcast and then go and cancel Verizon.
Now if you are not planning on switching, but want to pay less, or want better service, I use their anti-cancellation policy against them. The first level CSRs have limited power to do anything like offer discounts, upgrade service for free, etc. They can do some, but that is child's play compared to your cancellation people. What you do is if you don't work something out with the first level, tell them you want to cancel. You don't have to actually mean it, you just have to make them think you mean it. Even if there are no good alternatives ("I'll switch to satellite and DSL. I don't really need all of your bandwidth" or "My 4G hotspot works fine for me"). Sounds ridiculous, but you need to commit to the role. They will then transfer you to the cancellation people. Their job on paper is to shut off your service and close your account, but as we have seen in the news recently, their actual job is to do anything they can to prevent you doing that. If you get here, you are golden. Walk right into their trap: "Why do you want to cancel?" "I'm sorry to hear that, you must be very frustrated. What if I were to offer you x y z? Would that change your mind?" Checkmate.
The miners can sell the coins as soon as they are produced.
Yes, but will they be selling those coins at a profit or a loss? It costs money to produce coins (equipment, electricity, physical space, etc.). Let's assume that when you begin mining, the the sale price of BTC will allow you to turn a profit. But as we have seen, the sale price of BTC can fluctuate wildly. If the price falls below your starting price, you will no longer be turning a profit, but be bleeding money.
If the "majority of people" think bitcoins are overvalued, then they would be shorting them, and the value would fall. The current price is the consensus price where buyers and sellers are balanced.
This statement assumes that everyone who knows what bitcoin is and has an opinion on it is actively participating in the bitcoin economy. This is untrue. The majority of people who don't think bitcoins will hold their value have chosen not to participate in the bitcoin economy at all and are investing elsewhere.
This has become much less of a challenge than it would have been only just a few years ago. With more of the handset makers moving to the strategy of one device across all carriers and the carrier exclusive model almost dead (thankfully), most customers who have bought a mid to high end smartphone in the past two years likely already have both CDMA and GSM radios. I know at least if you have CDMA, you most likely also have GSM, not sure if the other way around holds true. In the short term, they will obviously have to maintain two networks, but over the long term, they need to pick one and begin to transition everyone over. If I were them, I would pick GSM simply because it is much closer to be a "standard" than CDMA and has a very strong global presence. This makes them more appealing to those moving from overseas and further strengthens the appeal of GSM in the US (If I choose Sprint but end up unhappy, I can take my phone to AT&T, but if I choose Verizon, my phone is stuck with Verizon). For transitioning, there is the very slow way: every new handset sold defaults to GSM until there are no more CDMAs (or few enough to pull the plug). They will also likely heavily promote cheap/free upgrades for anyone still on CDMA to speed things up. Or there is the quick way. Everyone has until X date to switch to GSM, and by the way, we have a lot of cheap/free phones to choose from, plus those new flagships that you know you gotta have right now. Slow is expensive, but will piss off less customers, the other will be cheaper, but could piss off more customers. AT&T and Verizon could also captitalize on those disgruntled customers and make it very easy and cost effective to switch (especially Verizon if Sprint chooses GSM and their CDMA customers want to bail). So in conclusion, it is a challenge, but not one without a solution, and nowadays, is a lot easier to solve.
Slashdot Mirror
Seems nice in theory, but all it does is take up more space that could otherwise be used by a bigger, longer lasting battery. It also creates restrictions in where components can be placed, because the battery must always be accessible to the user. But there are workarounds for non-removable batteries. If battery life is a concern, you have battery extending cases (where there is an extra battery built into the case) or portable chargers you can throw in your bag. If you are worried about replacing a battery that no longer holds a charge, you could still replace the battery, just a little more involved. Really only something you should need to do every 2 years or so.
Every once in a while someone comes out with one, and the market overwhelmingly rejects it. All of my friends/colleagues who are former Blackberry die hards have moved on and never looked back. Typing on a tiny physical keyboard has never been pleasant. Learn how to use Swype. It is much more efficient. Compared to a physical keyboard, it is faster, easier to do with one hand, and also pretty easy to do without looking (still should proof-read, though, but that's the case no matter what type or size keyboard).
Define "ridiculously". It needs to fit in your pocket right? That's where most people keep their phones. Thinner means you can fit more in your pocket. If you say, "well I'm just going to slap a giant case on it anyway like an otterbox", well, then I guess thin is even more important so that a phone+case doesn't take up too much room. Is thin ever a detriment, though? It may not be important to you, or a major selling point, but do you actually have a minimum thickness that you simply could not ever go under?
I'm with you on this one. I have smaller hands and I like to one-hand my phone. I used to travel a ton for work, so I needed something I could use while walking through an airport dragging a carry-on behind me. 5 inches is my max. I really liked my 4.7" original Moto X, though. That was perfect. Luckily, manufacturers seem to have gotten the message. Pixels, Galaxies and iPhones all come in 2 sizes now and the smaller one isn't just a cheaper, slower, inferior in every way version of the bigger one. Hopefully this trend continues and other manufacturers with more differentiated feature sets follow.
I'm curious about your issue with an infinity edge. You don't want a phone that's ridiculously large, so an infinity edge only helps with this. You can pack more screen real estate into a smaller overall phone. If you mean like the screens Samsung has on the S9 and introduced in the "Edge" series, I get it, but Samsung is the only one doing this, so not hard to avoid them.
Legitimate complaint. I'm not a huge fan either, but I'm warming up to it. I guess it depends on how you look at it. Does it take away usable screen space, or does it open up more screen space that would otherwise be a large bezel? Again this goes back to size. You don't want ridiculously large, but this is a way to pack more into a smaller size. There is a lot of experimenting going on here (that's essentially what this article is about - Samsung is trying out a bunch of stuff to see what sticks) and I like the way OnePlus has kept it minimal. At the same time, though, I thought the very slim bezels on the Pixel 2XL, Pixel 3 (small size) and Samsung S9 are really nice and didn't see a need to gain an extra few millimeters.
This is actually already happening with New Jersey micro-breweries. The new tiny breweries popping up with on-site tasting rooms aren't allowed to sell food, so they make it really easy for you to bring food from elsewhere. Everything from menus and maps of delivery/takeout friendly places nearby to food trucks in the parking lot and everything in-between.
For a little background, NJ laws previously made opening a brewery in NJ very difficult, but recent changes have spurred a lot of new microbreweries popping up. However, the laws in NJ are still a bit strange. In most other states, micro-breweries will run brew pubs to give their beers more exposure and also use food sales to help pad profits, but in NJ, they are not allowed to sell food and can only have a "tasting room", not a bar. What's the difference between a tasting room and a bar? For a tasting room patrons come for the free brewery tour and then are free to purchase beer at the bar. And the tours are usually a joke. One place literally says, "Look in there. That's where we make beer. Please proceed to the tasting room." (For the beer nerds like myself, you can still have a very in depth tour of their operation if you like). But the atmosphere is usually pretty great. Most have a very communal feel that try to include the biergarten concept. Feels like hanging out at a backyard BBQ than going to your typical bar. Some are dog friendly and kid friendly, too.
Yes. On my Pixel 2, there are 3 toggles for Emergency Alerts: AMBER alerts, Extreme threats, and Severe threats.
...hail yourself a new autonomous taxi to come pick you up and tell the owner of the first autonomous taxi to send a tow truck. I wouldn't be surprised if the car sends its own distress signal for service and a new car for the passenger automatically without any passenger input. Sounds like a better experience than your non-autonomous car. If you break down on the side of the road, you sit and wait for the tow truck.
I turn off Google Home timers/alarms by saying "Hey Google, Thank You". Not only does it work for turning off the alarm, but it just seems more pleasant then yelling "Stop!" Plus, she seems so enthusiastic about setting the timer to begin with, it's hard not to be polite back.
Maybe not directly, but Velcro is used by the military in many ways, one of which being to strap on body armour. The velcro enhances the utility of the body armour, which enhances the effectiveness of the weapon (a.k.a. the soldier).
Was going to say the same thing. If you walk into a Costco, you typically have only 2 -3 choices of brands for a particular good. Sometimes no choice. But Costco has found that people typically buy more and enjoy the experience more. This is a win for everybody. The customer is happier/less stressed about their choice, Costco gets more revenue from people buying more, and Costco also can keep their costs down by simplifying their inventory. I think a key component here, though, is that Costco has done a good job of whittling down the choices for us. If I'm buying ketchup, I have a choice between the cheap store brand, Heinz. Everyone knows Heinz. It's a safe choice. In cases where there is no choice, it's always the most well known/popular brand. What I don't have to do is choose between 3 crappy or unknown brands.
Thanks, it sounds pretty interesting. However, once again, you have started with the "How" and not with the "Why". Reading a list of specs, you are requiring the consumer to piece together on their own "...so I guess this one would be faster?" Don't make the consumer form those conclusions because they can't be relied upon to make them. Someone technically inclined enough probably will, but sounds like this router could bring value to more than just techies. If you said instead, "Our router allows much greater speed compared to any other router at this price point." Now you have a non-techies interest. If they ask how, then you say, "While most routers do not have a fiber connection. Ours does." The consumer says, "Oh awesome. You have the best router for the price. That translates to an awesome value for me."
If you want any consumers outside of tinkerers to care about open hardware, you need to explain to them what value they can get from open hardware compared to closed hardware, especially if there is a cheaper closed source option that I can reflash with open source firmware. Are there enough people out there that will both know the value and seek it out if it simply says "open hardware" somewhere in the specs without any further explanation? Maybe. You need to start with the "Why" not with the "How". The "Why" is "You can do x, y and z with our router [better|cheaper|at all|whatever], compared to other routers." The "How" is "via open hardware."
I know this may come off as "bullshit marketing speak" to some, but for me, I honestly don't know what open hardware would do for me. If your product is basically a router running DD-WRT/OpenWRT/Tomato, it better cost me no more than if I bought a Netgear and flashed it myself. If it costs more, what else am I getting other than convenience? I can't speak for everyone, but I have a feeling that those that already know that value of open hardware are also those that are very comfortable reflashing their own.
This was also a big contributing factor to Page and Brin being relegated to the kids table for a while until they were mature enough to run the company on their own.
I don't think they are planning on using these on actual golf courses. As you may know, golf carts are not used exclusively for golf. Any resort, or business with a large "campus" uses them to move people and objects around. Think about something like a large movie studio with lot of enclosed acreage and lots of different buildings that people need to get to and from relatively quickly, all while navigating through tons of foot traffic and other vehicles. There are even some gated communities (and even small islands) where people get around primarily by golf cart. The nice thing about these settings is that you don't need to go very fast (e.g, all under 25 mph) so there is a much lower margin of error. Getting hit by an autonomous golf cart is much less serious than an autonomous car. This will allow them to get into real world service sooner than an autonomous road car and hopefully, provide all of the wonderful data and lessons learned to the autonomous road car effort.
...and you will still spend more money on fuel than those who choose more efficient vehicles.
They don't. This is what taxes on gasoline are for. It is a usage based tax, though not the most accurate when you take into account the variation in vehicle fuel economy. Every now and then you do hear someone suggest that we tax based on actual miles driven (which I'm a fan of), but never seems to get too much traction. We all pay a flat "access" fee, though.
Because contributing more tax dollars to the schools can mean better schools. The better the schools, the more desireable the community. The more desireable the community, the more your property (and everyone else's in the community) is worth. The more your property is worth, the more you can directly benefit from the sale of said property. Not to mention the intangibles that come with living in a more upscale community that you might actually appreciate. I guess that's the ethical egoist's rationalization at least. "Look out for #1."
I agree this article was light on details and heavy on speculation. I read a more complete article yesterday regarding this. The benefit realized by 3D printing the tablet as opposed to standard tablet manufacturing is, yes, the precision dosing, but also the specific layering technique the 3D printing enables. They are able to stack alternating layers of active ingredient and inactive ingredient in a very precise fashion. This allows the drug to be dissolved and absorbed MUCH more rapidly than if it was manufactured using standard methods. Since this is for an epilipsy drug, this is a major advantage over competing drugs.
I think the more immediate changes are going to be that more and more manufacturers will take advantage of 3D printing, and not just as a way to reduce costs, but as a way to make drugs we weren't able to before. While printing custom dosages for each patient sounds great, there are still a lot of regulatory hurdles, since the majority of drugs are approved one dose at a time. There is some precedence though with things like radioactive pellets (for cancer treatment), which are often custom ordered, but those are regulated as medical devices, not pharmaceuticals. Even still, I would thing the custom dosing would really just be a range of specific dosages that a prescriber can choose from to have printed and the manufacturer would have to gain approval for each dosing and being able show clearly when and for whom each dose should be used.
And they do. It's 20 years from the date of filing. But you must also keep in mind that the pharmaceutical industry is a highly regulated and that the clock is ticking on your patent before you receive FDA approval to actually sell it. It can take between 8-12 years from the time you file your patent to when you can market your drug. That means that you may only have an 8 year window to recoup all of your R&D costs on that one product (and all of the the ones that failed) and turn a profit. That is why proprietary drugs can be so expensive (supply/demand and many other factors of course also comes into play). Once you hit the "patent cliff", then the generics will pounce, and begin producing and selling your product for less than it costs you to make. You have some options, though. You could compete with the generics. This is a tough one. While most will for a while, their market share will quickly erode due to the cost disadvantage until they pull out of the market altogether. But even though you have pulled out, you still need to "support" the product including any legal liability, even if the patient took the generic version. Pfizer is one of the few with the manufacturing capability (and ability to absorb losses) to actually compete on price with generics, and it was pretty groundbreaking when they did for Lipitor. You could try to get over the counter approval, but this is only an option for products that meet certain criteria and the costs to get the approval might not make sense. You will need to revise your product labels (packaging + the instructions that come with it) and get them approved (more painful than you might think) and also prove that a patient can safely self-diagnose and self-administer the product. Then there is the more controversial option, which is to request an extension of your patent or exclusivity. There are a lot of ways to extend exclusivity (which is distinct from patent), but I won't get into all of that here. For patent extension, typically a company will re-formulate the product in some way. It could be a change in dosage, it could be a new delivery system (injection -> tablets) or an "extended release" version. There is a valid argument to be made that these are simply stall tactics to milk the patent system for longer patent protection (and more profits), but they do have to be a legitimate improvement/benefit for the patient, so it does encourage some level of innovation, even if some feel it is not much.
So what I'm saying here is, patents are vital to pharmaceutical companies being able to actually make a profit on all of their hard work and there ARE limits on how long they can. Without the patent protection, I can see 2 scenarios: you could have "0 day generics", where the generic is available so quickly after a drug gets approval that the company that did all of the work of the work of identifying the compound, putting it through 3 phases of clinical trials and all of the other work necessary to gain FDA approval would be screwed. Or you would have companies treating the products as trade secrets, which would be difficult in the first place given the need for FDA approval, and likely mean no generics (and higher prices). Also, those discoveries would not be shared with the rest of the world, making it more difficult for competitors to improve upon or leverage the knowledge for something completely new.
Agreed. Google+ was launched at a perfect time to gain mass adoption. Complaints about Facebook seemed at an all time high and the "Facebook is uncool/loosing users/dead" stories seemed more frequent than usual. When everyone saw that there was an alternative that gives them better control over their posts, we were all saying "sign me up!!!". But even if you could get an account under the invitation only version, you probably didn't have any friends there. And as you said, by the time anyone could sign-up, the hype had died. They pretty much had a tiny window to get mass adoption and they blew it.
This. You need to do formal business requirements gathering on what the solution should do, regardless of whether it is a custom solution or off the shelf. This is a collaborative process that you need to drive. You also need to speak their language. This is not a technical discussion, it is a list of business wants/needs. You shouldn't even call it a specification, this is before the specification. An example business requirement is, "I must be able to assign volunteers to one or more categories" or "The system must be able to generate a report showing the sign-up history of all users." Process mapping can go a long way to helping identify requirements. Talk through the process of how volunteers need to sign up, administrative activities, etc. and what a system would need to do at each point. They have been doing this process already, so it should be easy to map out. You may even identify places where the process can be improved. Once you have a requirements list, you need to have them prioritize each requirement. This is critical for you since you are trying to convince them to go off-the-shelf. Each requirement is either Must Have or Nice to have. You can do a 1-3 scale too if that works better. If those edge cases they feel aren't addressed by off the shelf solutions are Must Haves, then, and only then, do you price out a custom solution along with all of the pros/cons of doing so. The price may make them change their minds on those edge cases. If it turns out those edge cases are Nice to Have, then you have what you need. You have essentially lead them into making the decision that you want them to make.
As a male, I would have loved to have this type of coverage through my employer for my spouse. When my wife and I decided to have a baby, we had to go the IVF route due to a condition my wife has. Since we knew we wanted to have a second, but the odds of doing so naturally were very low, we chose to freeze/store the extra eggs they retrieved as part of the procedure. My employer's health plan had a maximum lifetime coverage of $25,000 for fertility services, but it does not cover the cost to freeze and store eggs. Freeze and storage cost us $1200/year. When money was really tight, you really start to weigh your options as to whether you keep storing and pay that high price, or quit and free up the cash.
I think my anecdote also highlights a different use case for egg storage. While the summary, and most of the comments here focus on using the egg storage as a means of delaying having children, this can also be vital to whether you can have children at all or how many you can have. But I'm not surprised at the narrow focus of discussion. This seems to be the case with most controversial women's health issues. The birth control coverage issue I found particularly irritating. The argument was solely about whether employers should be "subsidizing a promiscuous lifestyle" yet hardly ever made mention of the fact that a large minority of women take birth control for a wide array of other reasons that are directly related to their health and well being. But that's mostly related to a woman's period, hormones and disorders/diseases that affect a woman's reproductive system and "that's totally disgusting. Shut up and go away!"
There always seems to be a pendulum in the cheap labor vs. automation decision. When a lot of manufacturing jobs were being outsourced to China, many looked at what those jobs were and saw that they were very repetitive and low skill jobs. They would then get a puzzled look on their face. They get that a Chinese person can do the same task cheaper than an American person, but why have a person do it at all? This job is perfect for automation! The reality, though, is that many Chinese people toiling away is still cheaper than designing, building and maintaining an automated system (i.e. robot). Of course, that still didn't stop someone from trying to figure out how to automate such a task, and now the costs of automating have significantly dropped. At the same time, as the economy of China is stimulated, the quality of life and cost of living rise, so rises the wages. Automation then looks like the cost effective option. The cycle will continue with the next cheap labor market and task that is only newly and expensively automated, and so on and so forth.
Chill out dude, I was complimenting you and agreeing with your position that this is all speculation from a historically unreliable source, so we should hold our comments until the actual announcement. Not everyone on the internet is out to attack you.
And the award for most prescient poster goes to Teancum. NASA has made the official announcement and it the contract is going to Boeing AND SpaceX (http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasa-gives-6-8-billion-boeing-spacex-apollo-style-spaceships-n204706), thus making this entire Slashdot story completely useless. Hey contributors/editors, if you see a story with inside information on something that will be announced within hours, why not just, you know, wait for the official announcement.
Assuming you have an option to switch ISPs (and I realize that many of you don't), it's actually pretty easy to do, even with leaving Comcast. This is really just an order of operations issue. Most people will decide they want to switch, call up their incumbent ISP to cancel their service, and then order their new service. Seems logical, but for best results, flip it around. Once you have decided to switch to the other guy, call the other guy first. The other guy will then set up your account, come to your house and do all of the installation, port your phone number over (if applicable) and then once you have verified that the service is working to your satisfaction, you call up the incumbent and tell them to cancel. This is how I switched from Comcast to Verizon a few years ago. Granted, I still dealt with an extremely defensive (anti)cancellation person on the phone, but it was a much more straightforward conversation. It went something like this...
Me: Hi. I switched to Verizon, cancel my service
Comcast: Why do you want to cancel?
Me: Your service doesn't work, I've had a tech out here 3 times and they didn't fix the issue. Fios has already been ordered and installed and it is working, which is something I could never have said for you.
Comcast: defensive statement...yada yada..Verizon installed a new wire to your house, that's why it's fixed
Me: Yeah, maybe you should have tried that on one of your 3 service calls, but you didn't. Anyway. I 'm not going to argue with you. I'm already receiving Verizon services, Comacast services have been physically disconnected. Cancel my account.
Comcast: Fine. Done.
And that was it. Hell I could have kept it even briefer if I had been prepared for such a defensive attitude, but even still, since you have physically disconnected their service and are already paying for their competitor, you know they have a snowball's chance in hell of getting you to agree to sending another tech over to re-connect Comcast and then go and cancel Verizon.
Now if you are not planning on switching, but want to pay less, or want better service, I use their anti-cancellation policy against them. The first level CSRs have limited power to do anything like offer discounts, upgrade service for free, etc. They can do some, but that is child's play compared to your cancellation people. What you do is if you don't work something out with the first level, tell them you want to cancel. You don't have to actually mean it, you just have to make them think you mean it. Even if there are no good alternatives ("I'll switch to satellite and DSL. I don't really need all of your bandwidth" or "My 4G hotspot works fine for me"). Sounds ridiculous, but you need to commit to the role. They will then transfer you to the cancellation people. Their job on paper is to shut off your service and close your account, but as we have seen in the news recently, their actual job is to do anything they can to prevent you doing that. If you get here, you are golden. Walk right into their trap: "Why do you want to cancel?" "I'm sorry to hear that, you must be very frustrated. What if I were to offer you x y z? Would that change your mind?" Checkmate.
Yes, but will they be selling those coins at a profit or a loss? It costs money to produce coins (equipment, electricity, physical space, etc.). Let's assume that when you begin mining, the the sale price of BTC will allow you to turn a profit. But as we have seen, the sale price of BTC can fluctuate wildly. If the price falls below your starting price, you will no longer be turning a profit, but be bleeding money.
This statement assumes that everyone who knows what bitcoin is and has an opinion on it is actively participating in the bitcoin economy. This is untrue. The majority of people who don't think bitcoins will hold their value have chosen not to participate in the bitcoin economy at all and are investing elsewhere.
Because the longer you sit there waiting for your device to charge, the more coffee they can sell you.
This has become much less of a challenge than it would have been only just a few years ago. With more of the handset makers moving to the strategy of one device across all carriers and the carrier exclusive model almost dead (thankfully), most customers who have bought a mid to high end smartphone in the past two years likely already have both CDMA and GSM radios. I know at least if you have CDMA, you most likely also have GSM, not sure if the other way around holds true. In the short term, they will obviously have to maintain two networks, but over the long term, they need to pick one and begin to transition everyone over. If I were them, I would pick GSM simply because it is much closer to be a "standard" than CDMA and has a very strong global presence. This makes them more appealing to those moving from overseas and further strengthens the appeal of GSM in the US (If I choose Sprint but end up unhappy, I can take my phone to AT&T, but if I choose Verizon, my phone is stuck with Verizon). For transitioning, there is the very slow way: every new handset sold defaults to GSM until there are no more CDMAs (or few enough to pull the plug). They will also likely heavily promote cheap/free upgrades for anyone still on CDMA to speed things up. Or there is the quick way. Everyone has until X date to switch to GSM, and by the way, we have a lot of cheap/free phones to choose from, plus those new flagships that you know you gotta have right now. Slow is expensive, but will piss off less customers, the other will be cheaper, but could piss off more customers. AT&T and Verizon could also captitalize on those disgruntled customers and make it very easy and cost effective to switch (especially Verizon if Sprint chooses GSM and their CDMA customers want to bail). So in conclusion, it is a challenge, but not one without a solution, and nowadays, is a lot easier to solve.