Currently, I pay about $15 a ticket and also have to drive to the city to see it on a big screen surrounded by people I simply have no interest in being surrounded by. I can't pause and take a break if I want and frankly, I pay at least $25-$30 in parking. Add the cost of popcorn, drinks and candy and then add that I'm also likely to take the family to eat dinner downtown as well since going to the movies is such a bloody expensive thing that it's a "Special Occasion" treat so why not?
I think in the end, I haven't managed to go to the movie without spending at least $250 with the wife and kids since the kids outgrew happy meals. I suppose we could rough it and maybe get it to about $150 if we skip the meal, but consider the alternative.
Rent a movie for $50 Cook dinner, maybe seasoned roast pork with a red wine sauce, asparagus, garlic and onion mashed potatoes... $15 for four people Make popcorn (have a small theater popper with proper oil and flavocol) about $1 - $2 A few cans of soda $3 1kg Bag of loose candy from the Swedish candy store in the city... $12
Now, I blew the money a few years back on a 720p projector (would be nicer with better... but... it's what I have and it's pretty good) and painted a room dark matte colors to reduce reflection. I have a 5.1 Sony stereo which would make an audiofil cry, but unless I cover the room in noise dampening foam... so be it.
So, we can gather on a couch and watch movies in more comfort, eat better... I can have a beer or prosecco while watching... and I'll have spent maybe $90 by the time I'm done. And the wife and kids and snuggle on me while we watch the film.
Why in hell would anyone ever spend money on a movie theater? Sure it sounds extravagent to have your own home theater, but consider I spent less building it than it would have cost to go to the movies 8 times.
And then when we go out... which is often enough, we can walk around the city or at the cabins in the mountains overlooking the city and enjoy the view, talk with the people etc... going to the movies is basically paying to sit on someone else's couch and keep silent.
hmm... I'm not sure if I'm with you on this. I agree it's hard to see this as a setback. I don't believe it is. I imagine we learned a great deal about the process from the failure and should be able to achieve better results the next time.
I don't have a clear understanding of how we could apply such science into applied engineering today, but I'm wondering if we learned a lot more than is visible on the surface. Let's consider that we now know how to create that much pressure. Let's also consider that we know that helium can actually become metallic.
Ok... let's also consider that once the material is compressed, the energy is stored and it may be possible the experts in forming diamond crystals will be able to engineer a more perfect structure for the containment of the metal without the need to apply additional pressure. It is also possible that as a room-temperature super conductor, we might be able to learn how to encapsulate liquid helium in a crystalline structure on a quasi-molecular (proper term?) level. We may be able to find a way to produce some sort of liquid like beads of minuscule room temperature superconductors. I may be possible to crystallize large amounts (billions of parts) of metallic hydrogen in arrays of crystal so that it might be etched.
We could also possible find that this could be an alternative method of storing large amounts of energy for use in space. Imagine a lightweight material able to propel a turbine within a generator as the energy is released? That could be a safer and more practical alternative to nuclear radiation. We would only need a method of storing the material in cells and releasing the material in a controlled fashion.
What about all the other options. While superconductivity is sexy, can this process be effectively applied to other materials? Could it be done on a large scale? Can this be a theoretical alternative method to producing nearly perfect structures as opposed to carbon nanotubes? Could we get the benefits of a perfect structure but on a larger scale? Could we find a way to push particles of other materials through a compression chamber of this sort to produce wires that are less volatile?
I would imagine that the scientists involved with this project have though in many of these same directions. They have likely thought in more. But I believe that at this point of their research, they need to learn more about the structure of the material they have created and hopefully identify better solutions to contain the compressed energy.
We live in a society where companies like Diesel who run major fashion lines and advertising campaigns to glorify stupid. In all fairness, Diesel was trying to suggest that one shouldn't always take the "smart and sensible path", but people wore shirts saying "Smart is ok, but stupid is fun". The people wearing that clothing seemed to believe that doing the stupid thing could be far more productive and constructive than having and idea and properly planning and executing it in a constructive manor.
We had a president who for 8 years told the American people that even as the son of one of the most powerful men in the world (Director of Central Intelligence or VP of the US as the time) was a C+ student... meaning that his professors, knowing there would be a call from one of the most powerful men on earth if they failed his son, gave him the lowest possible grade they thought they could get away with... in a business school. Now mind you, I really really like GWB, I think he is one of the nicest people on earth, a man with the absolute best intentions with a heart as pure as laboratory diamonds. Sadly, he's dumb as a brick and has absolutely no capacity for understanding the consequences of his decisions.
When presented with the choice of Al Gore who is only mildly more intelligent but at least as far as politicians are concerned is a mental giant or GWB, the American people felt they associated much better with GWB. Even though Al Gore would likely make decisions to improve the lives of all people and would do his absolute best to represent the emotional, spiritual, etc... interests of all Americans, he came off as too smart and too nerdy (and too much of a know it all) and the people sided with the C+ flunky who had a good heart and spoke to the people in a way that they could relate to. I don't believe that was a calculated action by GWB as I believe calculation of any type is not his strength. I believe his sheer dumbness allowed people to better love and identify with him. I feel terrible that now that I know more about him that I said so many bad things about him while he was in office. It was like picking on the slow kid at school who couldn't defend himself because he didn't even understand the insults. He might be one of the best people on earth at heart and as a representative of the vast majority of the American people, he was spectacular. Too bad he was also expected to provide leadership, manage money and a military a role he was clearly no suited for. This is a very strong case for separating the presidency into president and prime minister.
We also live in a society which glorifies hate and violence. We believe a child who dresses up in camouflage pajamas and spends 8 weeks in basic training should be called a hero for stepping up to protect the American way. Without having the slightest idea of what the American way is other than to dress up in said pajamas, he/she is placed in a position of ultimate judgement. He/she is expected to make conscientious decisions whether to take the life of a mother, a father, a son or a daughter. He is expected with no more experience than that of a child to represent the American people at the end of a gun and make judgement calls that have overwhelming impact on society as we know it. We call these children heroes and we praise them in media, advertisements and more. People forfeit business class and first class seats in support of their sacrifices for freedom.
Consider that that child, fresh out of high school will make $18,802.80 a year as a private and can easily escalate to $22,165.20 by doing their jobs with some level of diligence within a year. Also consider they are provided with excellent quality (though questionable tasting) food, excellent medical care, excellent dental benefits, clothing, housing, career education, transportation and college aid. Their quality of life and standard of living when not at war is approximately equal to a $60,000 a year job at the age of 18 with absolutely no education other than a Basic and AIT provided
To be honest, NASA is bloody brilliant and should never be denounced for their awesomeness, I agree wholeheartedly that Apollo would have never happened without NASA. That said, there are endless projects that could never have happened without them. The amount of science and tech they feedback is incredible.
Now... SLS is a project which has dumped billions into the American economy and has been a major component of helping the US recover from the DotCom Boom and later financial distastes of this century. Companies like Lockheed, Boeing and others provide a great service as money launderers for congress trying to stimulate the economy in different regions. They however are bureaucratic cesspools of filth and decay that fail at 9 out of every 10 projects announced since many of those projects really were intended to do nothing more than just feed money into the economy.
SLS would have never happened if it weren't for private space.
How many failed space projects have there been since the original Space Shuttle?
How many years did we fly the Space Shuttle and perpetuate the life of the Space Shuttle before we finally decided we had to move on and finally make something more?
This is because the ULA guys and Boeing never actually needed to complete a project in order to get more money for not completing it. It is too much work to bid on and negotiate for a new space launch vehicle. So, it's better to drag each one out as long as possible milking the government for more funding. NASA has been crippled by the government contractors. What's more is that Boeing and ULA are just so damn big, there was no other companies that could meet the minimum requirements to bid on these contracts, so NASA couldn't even pack up and go somewhere else.
Enter SpaceX and others.
SpaceX has now consistently delivered on inexpensive flights, advancing technology, even making space interesting again. They are a company that survives on launch contracts and while they take funding and government money, as far as I can tell, in the entire lifetime of the company, they haven't taken even as much as just this one SLS contract.
Does this mean that SpaceX is better than government? Nope... but here's the thing, if ULA or Boeing doesn't deliver on space projects now, the government can ask SpaceX or BlueOrigin (who seems to be working with ULA surprisingly enough). This has changed the entire dynamic of the space program. It meant that the NASA, after over 40 years of what generally has always felt like corruption can actually expect their contractors to deliver.
It is also very likely that Boeing and ULA companies may actually save their reputations and do better in business because private space is forcing them to actually be better than they were. Just imagine what would happen if Musk or Bezos got into commercial passenger aircraft and decided to compete with the 787 for example. Planes would cost a tenth as much and be designed to have lower cost of ownership.
These companies have been cornerstones of American accomplishment but when the politicians found out that they could use these companies to stimulate the economy, they started looking for projects to dump money into no matter what the outcome. It was altruistic, but it established a precedent that said "You don't actually have to build anything, just make jobs". And for nearly 30 years, that's what they did.
The design of the SLS, while FRIGGING AWESOME!!!! is just too expensive and placed absolutely no focus on practicality. My guess is a room of NASA scientists and engineers looking at the design and shaking there heads and thinking "This is what we get for that much money?". The entire rocket is probably heavily based on the idea of "If you want something good, we can go back to the drawing board for 10 years, this one we can deliver now".
I loved and adored the Space Shuttle. As a small child when it was being built, I slept snuggling on a stuffed space shuttle doll. There are so many things that made the S
Let me respond... as an actual, real life, genuine, pure-blooded... recovering Jew... I can't tell whether I should take offense to this or laugh my ass off at it.
Please tell me that you have some Jewish in your blood line... 1/64th on your sister-in-law's mother's side is good enough. Unless you happen to be either a Jew, Gypsy, or.. well a plastic toy doll that sends everything children say to American servers for logging, it's just outright offensive that you would make such a comparison.
Also, I fear the lash-back that will come from the Dollocaust deniers.
P.S. - Recovering from Judaism is similar to recovering from alcohol addiction or Catholicism. Once you're in, you're in. There's nothing you can do which makes you any less Jewish culturally, you can deny it, you can fight it, but as soon as there's latkas and draydels and nagging old ladies gumming their lips peddling out guilt, it's all over.
As a father, I've had the displeasure of having PewDiePie as a regular member of my house. For example, me, ny son, my daughter and my niece were walking in Manhattan, which is in itself unlikely to happen as they live in Florida and we live in Norway. But we were on vacation with one another and my son and I were joking with each other and I said "You suck" and the two girls who see each other every second or third year simultaneously say "You swallow" which horrified me but apparently was a great bonding experience for the girls who immediately giggled, compared notes and came to the realization they're both primarily educated by PewDiePie.
I have been horrified and offended by PewDiePie before. Let me also say that as a recovering Jew, I lived growing up surrounded by family who were escapees, survivors, etc... of the holocaust. What I found is simple, if a Jew were to do something as stupid as what PewDiePie did, it would be distasteful irony, if anyone else did, it would be antisemitic.
Now, the Germans didn't systematically destroy 6 millions Jews and Gypsies and Black people. They systematically destroyed 6 million Jews, 5 million Gypsies and I have no idea about the black people, by I'd imagine the number would be horrifying as well. If you're going to be an SJW, you have to try and be at least a little close to right.
Let's settle some things... was Hitler anti-Jew (Antisemitic requires that the person is a semite. I challenge any European Jew to prove they are actually a semite), yes he was. Was he trying to eliminate Jews, by his own words and hand, he was. But only a filthy and disgusting person would call the holocaust the "Jewish Holocaust" because he was a pretty equal opportunity hater. He wanted to kill everyone that was easy to target. Jews, Gypsies and Blacks all have something in common, they are easy to find, they are clearly different than other people (at least visually) and it's really easy to convince massive numbers of people they are the cause of their problems.
Wanna see something horrifying, look at how easily Trump is manipulating people to get his "Great Wall of Trump" build so he'll accomplish immortality. He is using the same sort of gifts and rhetoric that Hitler used. He'll give anyone anything they want so long as they let him build that wall. He'll tell us all "we're better than those dark skinned Mohammad lovers are... they're trying to kill us.. those Mexicans want to take your jobs, your homes and your daughters, let me build that wall!!!!"
Now, here's the thing... PewDiePie is a moron. He has made himself rich and famous by being a one man Jack-Ass Online show. His audience is a massive number of young and impressionable children and what has he now taught them? He taught them that it's a sick world where people would be willing to hold such horrible signs for $5. He showed that people would be willing to sell their souls for $5.
It's disgusting in my opinion that children should learn something so terrible at such a young age. What he did taught first world children about how bad life is for some people that $5 is the price of their conscience. He showed that people could be easily bought or manipulated for almost nothing. I'm 100% sure that the people holding those signs didn't believe in them, I am also pretty sure that the guy in Sri Lanka was more concerned about how long he could live on that $5. I don't think he knows or cares about who Hitler was. But I also know that he can be bought for $5.
Dude, I think what he did was a service. I think that out of all the stupid shit he's said and done, he's actually done something right for once. I think he demonstrated outright how easy it is to convince people "Hitler Good, Jew Bad". He showed that a person in that type of position will go where he/she believes the food is. It takes very very little to convince people to dispose of the last good thing left in their hearts when there's nothing left in their stomachs.
What could you ask a man/women do for $10 or a promise of $5
I think that this is a very short sighted opinion on their behalf. First of all, we're all facing a market where there will be too many people and too few jobs. In a circumstance like that, we need to be prepared with and organized method of supporting the people while trying to identify alternative sources of jobs.
In America, they faced this problem and GWB and Obama provided a work solution where instead of reeducating people and producing real jobs, they employed 3 million American's directly in military (over a million), the TSA (over 1.2 million) and the DHS and other agencies. In addition, they employed many more indirectly since for every employee you employ, a series of support employees will be needed. They paid their employees large enough sums to redistribute the wealth a few levels and create many Walmart and McDonalds jobs. In addition, the government took on the burden of covering a substantial portion of employee salaries for large job makers. For example, Walmart pays minimum wage but provides support to their employees to help them register for government benefits such as welfare and food stamps... all while Walmart pays dividends roughly equal to what the government is paying to support their employees.
The truth is, America has proven what happens when you have a very large unskilled workforce with very little education. But they decided that instead of basic income which could provide these people the opportunity to study and improve themselves, they would instead give them jobs which would be better than just having people laying around doing nothing. Instead, now they stand around doing nothing while wearing uniforms. A very large part of the money the TSA and DHS consumes can be recovered by taxing people using the airports and immigration systems. Currently, over 70% of the cost of a coach plane ticket to the U.S. is to cover TSA and DHS USCIS fees.
Finland is trying an alternative method. Instead of dooming people to an existence of nothingness where their only value to the world is to wear a uniform that makes you look like a prison inmate at airports, they are trying to see if they can motivate people to do more than just keep a sofa from floating away by providing enough money to scrape by on to the truly unambitious while hoping the people will use it as an opportunity to do something more.
Many of the people could use this opportunity to start "work from home" businesses or can afford to help someone else start a company doing something. As a programmer, I would welcome a government stipend that would support me and my family long enough to develop a product that would take 2-3 years to make but wouldn't ever be made if I had to earn money to feed myself while doing it. I could make far better products if I wasn't desperate to meet certain deadlines like "mortgage must be paid".
There's also the issue that I on average pay about 12 times as much tax as the average person. I actually pay about 6 full middle class salaries worth of tax each year. I would like some of that money to be paid to intelligent and creative people who want to start businesses but can't because they can't feed themselves while they're getting started.
This program is just an alternative to what the American's did. GWB and Obama on behalf of America chose to implement a form of communism (almost Soviet style) to solve the problem of too many people and not enough jobs. They made a lot of shit jobs for stupid people and locked them into them by paying them more than they were worth and guaranteeing they couldn't leave as no one would pay them as much.
Finland is hoping that instead of ruining their population by beating them down into a greater depth of stupidity, they can provide them the means to have an opportunity to be creative and hopefully create new business that wouldn't be as easily susceptible to being replaced by outsourcing or automation. That could be more services, it could be more careers related to arts or vanity. There are endless opportunities, but with
It seems that most people on slashdot like to talk about things they speculate on as though they are authorities on the topic.
Insurance companies are in business to make money.
If people chose one insurance company over another because of price and restrictions, the rules of the first company will adapt to attract new customers.
Insurance companies almost certainly will try to find a way to profit more from self-driving cars but when there's more profit to be made, one company will offer better terms than another causing the other to respond in kind. Eventually, once the terms leave both companies relatively profitable, the consumer will likely have pretty good terms in the contract and no reason to move to someone else.
I've now read like 10 articles and 1000 comments this morning and it seems to me that everyone is an expert on everything and most of us just simply talk utter nonsense without thinking at all about what we're saying.
As for this topic, let's just assume for now that insurance will be expensive to start with and will come down quickly because their customers can just leave them.
I have driven in many European cities and I think the point you're missing is related to the attitude behind the driving.
Mediterranean bordering countries are a special exception to... well every rule ever made. Ask them, they believe it too.
If you're talking about Amsterdam, self driving cars will never work, but I give it less than 5 years before cars are simply illegal within the main city. They just passed that rule in Oslo, Norway. After June, it will be illegal to drive within the inside ring of the city except for deliveries. If you consider someplace like Enschede or Tilburg, it will work perfectly. This has to do with organized management of pedestrian and bicycle traffic. You'll also see more effort placed on providing pedestrian tunnels for crossing main roads which has been very successful for safety in many places. Of course that's really not an option in Amsterdam.
It won't work anywhere in France or Italy. These are countries where you drive like a frigging mad man and ram yourself into traffic and just pray you make it. I am still shaking in fear 5 years later from the last time I drove in Paris. I have never encountered more mean spirited drivers anywhere in the world. I honestly think the drivers in Paris believe that they are on earth purely to punish each other.
I think Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, well... pretty much anywhere you have civilized people, self-driving cars will be faster than human driven ones... especially when they consider queue management and we can merge lanes at 70km/h instead of 1km/h. Also when the cars have proper traffic information and can make better choices for driving and directions. Traffic lights can talk with cars and change based on actual queue information.
It's not about just the immediate area surrounding the car, it's about the overall traffic environment. Queue management functions substantially better when viewed as a big picture than if every car manages itself.
First of all, I like that Ford decided to do this outside of their company. Ford has always been piss-poor at technology. I've rented many of their "better cars" and have been horrified by how poorly they work from a technical aspect. Even the door locks always feel like the "budget model". Every time they try to build technology in-house they fail. For example, when they used Microsoft's car system for the stereo and then made it impossible to update the software without bringing it to the factory. As a result, they released a version and thought "wow, that's shipped... next product" and when bug reports came in, they were confused... actually outright clueless.
Ford can make engines and gears and seats. They sure as hell can't build computers. Need proof, show me a Ford which has an ignition computer which isn't utterly stupid. I actually found myself in a Mustang pulling to the side of the highway, shutting off the car, locking the doors and unlocking and starting it again to reboot computers. They can manufacture big metal things. As for making new technology... NO!!!!
As such, as you said, Ford has to think about what to do in case self-driving happens and then we start getting rules which say "No human driven cars on main roads" which I personally will contribute to the lobbying effort for. I want human drivers off the roads I use ASAP. Driving sucks and it's mostly because of "good drivers". So, if self-driving cars work and even become mandatory, Ford needs a solution and they know they can't possibly do it themselves. So, throw a bunch of money at some people who can do it and then give them the cars they should do it in.
Companies will also try to increase their business. If you don't have to pay the driver, you can afford to decrease the rates you charge for the car.
Marking up a car as much as you can is "within what the market will bare". If your goal is to be more profitable, you will exploit all avenues. You can't be someone smart enough to build a self driving car taxi company and then be so dumb as to shoot yourself in the foot by pricing yourself out of the range of what customers will pay.
In my experience, if you can afford to buy more expensive cars (you have good credit) then you can have a car which is pretty reliable and relatively low cost to maintain. In addition, you can maintain a relatively high resell price which means that often it costs less to drive an expensive car than a cheap one over a period of 4 years. That is of course if you maintain that car properly. If you simply drive cars into the ground, the cheaper car is probably... well cheaper.
So that said, if I could pay a self driving car to pick me up at around 6:30 and drive me to the nearby train station, then pick me up from the same train station around 17:00 and drive me home, I would gladly stop driving my own car. I pay about $1000 a month to drive, that includes car payments, the occasional cost of using a fast charger, parking, etc... when I consider resell value, I can adjust that to about $600 a month. If I could get driven 7km each day for about $10 a day, I would pay about $200 a month for the car and about $100 a month for the train. If there are 3 other people in the car also paying $10 a day which is extremely likely and the car is used for more trips which is also likely, that's car could likely generate $200 a day revenue. For 20 days a month on average, that would be about $4,000 per car per day. Consider car payments, insurance and charging to consume about half that. If I owned five of those cars, I would generate a mediocre income on top of my normal income.
PS, I drive new cars because of things like EU control. If you own a new electric car, it cost almost nothing compared even to a gas car you got for free but is out of warranty. Consider the insanely high gas prices as well. Used electric cars are stupid because after 4 years, you might as well just toss the batteries.
Let's just stop making the cars and do whatever is possible to kill the enthusiasm that has convinced Ford to make a huge investment in this technology. I think we should just give up and all become naysayers and just keep doing it the same way we always have.
Shhh... if you say it like that, people might think that there isn't a proper conspiracy or cronyism.
We're not allowed to ever suggest on slashdot that choosing a Microsoft product over something else could be because people decided they just prefer to use the Microsoft products and understand how to do business with them better.
I'd imagine that a big part of it is "We are skilled with Microsoft products and can provide you better support if you're using Microsoft products especially since we can call Microsoft if we need to get support".
Is there any particular reason why we wouldn't want to have the choice between different systems like Linux, Windows and Mac?
I have to admit, I kinda like Windows, I really miss Windows 8, but Windows 10 works too. I generally don't use Linux on the desktop since I personally can't use most versions of Gnome because well... it's just too ugly to look at and KDE is more of an academic project than a product anymore. I sometimes use Mac which is okish but doesn't handle a lot of open applications well and gets REALLY REALLY REALLY slow when you've been programming on it for a while. It's nice for Netflix and stuff.
I do use Linux extensively though. I use it a lot more now that I can run Ubuntu on Windows. I used Linux exclusively for 6 years, I'm really happy I'm past that phase, I spent most of my time fixing the compiler and fixing the kernel.
That is good... if LibreOffice works for light usage in your environment... excellent!!!
I am also glad you've confirmed that you've spent lots of money on computers for your personal use which not-surprisingly perform better than corporate PCs which generally are far less expensive per unit and have a greater focus on manageability than performance. As for the Nvidia graphics thing... pretty cool man. I'm glad to hear that 3D graphics chips are making your LibreOffice presentations rock.
There are many people out there that have different needs than you and I would imagine that in the city of Munich, they have different needs than you. They might want to focus on operating their city instead of writing bug fixes for LibreOffice.
In about 80 years of programming languages, there have been a few examples of companies which have managed to turn programming languages and runtimes into something which turned a profit, but generally not many and not for long.
COBOL - Microfocus and a few other have turned a buck on COBOL but mainly because no one really wanted to bother implementing and supporting a competitor. In reality, COBOL support is what is turning a profit, not the language itself. Oh and Microfocus never tried to own the language or runtime.
Powerbase - Same genre of languages as COBOL and again focused on business coding. This one turned a profit until other tools because easier to use and more supported.
DBase, FoxPro, etc... - They did well until we moved on. Aston Tate somehow managed to make a huge business out of selling a business programming language. But all good things come to an end... especially when the competition released something better...like for example and Oracle SQL server... which is actually what killed DBase.
I can go on for a while, but to be fair, Oracle failed something horrible if the business geeks didn't do their jobs and thought a programming language could count as something profitable. They simply aren't. Even now, most users of Java aren't using Java but the platform and while Android is implementing a subset of the Java APIs, they don't implement the platform. Most users are now using language like Closure which offer a Java compatible experience but without the Java. The sad part is, since Oracle isn't adopting those other technologies, they will be responsible for destroying the Java market.
I think probably the thing that really ruined Java is that they named the Language, the byte code and the runtime all the same thing. As such, Oracle doesn't properly support their platform.
"Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has shown us how to defeat men like Trump. Learn from Dr. King's example."
I believe very strongly I learned a great deal more from MLK which taught me it's not necessary to defeat men like Trump. We should instead speak his language and try and make him see that it's important to represent us, not just try and make it into history books as the most famous president ever.
Trump has thus far only performed in ways that would rile the rabble. He's adopting historically proven methods of garnering support with absolute disregard to the health of the people to be able to leave on mark on the planet. He'll toss out a bunch of useless gun regulation because the loudest Americans will sing him praise for it. He'll try to build a wall that can be seen from space but will have no real impact. He'll have 100 million people marching in the streets singing "God Bless America" waving flags and naming their babies Donald. He'll be taught about in history books for a thousand years. He will be immortal.
So, if we want something from him. If we want to be represented. We have to see if there's something we can give him that he wants. He wants immortality. He wants to be more historically famous than even the first black president (who he seems to hate). How can we give him infamy and immortality so that he can give us something in return.
Remember Obama failed at absolutely everything he did in office. He used the RIAA and MPAA as the DOJ. He took a housing crisis and through money at it instead of offering a solution that could have worked... like for example, making the banks move people who could afford $100,000 houses out of $250,000 houses and people who could afford $250,000 houses out of houses that cost $500,000 etc... he pushed through bills with nifty names like ACA and "The new new deal" which sounded great but weren't worth the paper they were printed on since he didn't care what the bills said, as long as they had the right name and he got credit. He was a great guy and I loved him, but holy shit, he was so bad at being president, he deserves to sit at a dinner table with Clinton, Bush and Bush.
Most presidents are genuinely good people who genuinely want to do the right thing for the people. Even Nixon was mostly a good person. But what they all have in common is that they generally suck at it. The American democracy is in shambles. There are 400 million people who more or less only ever agree that they are better than each other. Otherwise the country is sick and it's sick enough to elect a person like Donald Trump.
Remember, Donald will be about the same as every other president. He'll do things, they'll be stopped or overthrown. He'll be reigned in eventually. A president can't just do whatever he wants. That was the whole point of building a country that was meant to deter the rise of a tyranny. But he can do some stuff and it would be very good if we could learn how to work with him to give him fame while giving us a better place to live. It is absolutely clear that he'll do just about anything to get an extra paragraph about how awesome he is in an encyclopedia. Let's see if we can make it happen.
Dr, MLK was not about defeating anyone. To defeat someone, you have to accept them as an enemy. MLK had no enemies. He embraced people and broke down barriers. If you really wish to do that man justice, you have to realize that there are far better ways to make the world a better place than to pick fights.
Honestly, blind traders are a burden on society. What i mean by blind traders is that people who are simply running gambling algorithms and living by the "buy low sell high" rule are a curse on society. It's also what makes it so that people lose tens of thousands of jobs due to "restructuring" because algorithmic traders won't generate trade volume unless someone publishes something in the newspaper. I actually have been sickened by the disgusting concept of a trading floor for decades. It's a group of ass hats running around from buzz to buzz and buying and selling things they don't understand and ruining lives.
Laws should be passed requiring traders to have to apply for permission to make each trade. What I mean is that all traders even the small ones should have the same requirements that major share holders have. So, you should be able to buy in, but you would have to release a statement of intent to trade and wait 7 days before the transaction takes place.
There is a disgusting belief, almost like a religion that suggests that gambling on shares with absolutely no regard for how it impacts society as a whole is "Free Market" and "Democracy". Bullshit. Gambling on stocks IS NOT the same as investing in companies. What is worse is that when you gamble on stocks, you believe you have the right to demand a company behaves in any way it takes to increase the value of those stocks to make you a profit. That's filth. It causes shitbacks at major companies to lay off 20% of their workforce and outsource to India because it will generate the buzz which will cause trading volumes to skyrocket. And if the direction is up, people will rake it in, if it's down, they'll short the hell out of it. And yet, you just killed a city and can't even tell me what the company actually does.
I will shit all over HFT and algorithmic trading because it legitimizes shitting all over millions of peoples lives without even having the first idea what company you're actually effecting. The stock market isn't like a casino. If you win or lose in a casino, only the casino and a small number of people may be impacted. When you treat wall street as a casino where you are allowed to count cards, you and your peers can actually destroy the financial health of entire cities. A program with a bug could collapse an entire company within a few seconds destroying lives.
Yes, I know there are upsides to trading as well. It gives legitimate investors a way to abandon sinking ships for example. This gives legitimate investors a better reason to make the investment when it's needed. But the downsides far outweigh the upsides.
Trading is a predatory business/career that focuses entirely on profit with absolutely no regard for the peoples lives it impacts.
Maybe trading should be restricted to only company stocks that are related to dumping trash in oceans, distributing child labor, sex trafficking and so forth. Trading requires about the same moral compass.
Learning to program and learning to program a specific language are two entirely different things. Generally avoid looking for "Learn to program C" books and instead look for "Learn to program using C" books.
There are clear differences between programmer and educated programmers as well. Anyone can learn to program fairly quickly. Possibly using some of these "hour of code" projects you'll find online would be quite effective. What you really need is something that will kick start you and get you coding in something that will allow you to make things.
I highly recommend against using system languages like C to get start programming. While it's definitely possible to make a program that adds numbers together and displays the output, writing an type of application with a user interface on Windows, Mac or Linux using C will require understanding complex memory management topics. In addition, on Windows, you'd use the Windows API, Linux you'd probably use GTK+ and on Mac you're basically screwed as you would need very complex systems like Swig to expose the application development API to C. All these systems require a fairly strong understanding of programming in C before you even consider using them.
At this point in time I tend to recommend for simplicity using Python as a starting point. The drawback to this is that Python is an incredible language but it has evolved into one of the ugliest systems as there seems to be no control over the trash that can be contributed to the libraries surrounding it. In some ways that's precisely what makes Python ideal as an option. When you code in Python as long as your indentation follows the rules, absolutely everything else, no matter how bad it might be is considered perfectly good Python programming.
There are programming generations as well. Languages come and go. There is always on dominant language used by the most people due to the "anything goes" mantra which draws a lot of learners and hackers. It was BASIC, Pascal, Visual Basic, Perl, PHP and now Python. Python is special because you can actually do the right thing in it if you know how. It can actually be used as a real programming language. The main problem is that most people contributing to it don't know how.
I personally recommend that people learn to program now using C#. The reason is that it's a balanced language that offers a bit of the best of all worlds. Using C#, you can write an operating system (except the initial boot code), you can write a state of the art video game, you can write a business system etc... while many languages can do this, C# is fully supported (with GUI) on Windows, Mac and Linux as well as for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Android and Windows Phone. The learning curve to developing for most of these systems (with GUI and user interaction) is substantially lower than when using something like Swift. Swift itself is a fairly ok language, but while it's open source, it isn't terribly useful for anything other than Apple programming and it's main selling point is "It's not Objective-C" and yet borrows a bit too much from Objective-C.
C# is a great tool as unlike other languages, it's part of a proper infrastructure focused on compatibility, evolution and portability. C# is based on.NET which is very similar to the Java infrastructure but properly supports dozens of programming languages with a great base set of libraries. C# as a language is very feature rich and while it's possible to write truly horrible code in it, it's also very easy to make very clean and good code in it. From within Visual Studio or Visual Studio for Mac, you can code natively for all major platforms and Microsoft also has good quality moderated forums that means when you have questions, you get help from constructive people more often than from trolls.
Some people mention Java. The problem with Java is generally lack of platform support. Java works great on Android, but on Windows, Linux, Mac, you have to use the JVM which causes constant pain to the user
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Agreed,
Currently, I pay about $15 a ticket and also have to drive to the city to see it on a big screen surrounded by people I simply have no interest in being surrounded by. I can't pause and take a break if I want and frankly, I pay at least $25-$30 in parking. Add the cost of popcorn, drinks and candy and then add that I'm also likely to take the family to eat dinner downtown as well since going to the movies is such a bloody expensive thing that it's a "Special Occasion" treat so why not?
I think in the end, I haven't managed to go to the movie without spending at least $250 with the wife and kids since the kids outgrew happy meals. I suppose we could rough it and maybe get it to about $150 if we skip the meal, but consider the alternative.
Rent a movie for $50
Cook dinner, maybe seasoned roast pork with a red wine sauce, asparagus, garlic and onion mashed potatoes... $15 for four people
Make popcorn (have a small theater popper with proper oil and flavocol) about $1 - $2
A few cans of soda $3
1kg Bag of loose candy from the Swedish candy store in the city... $12
Now, I blew the money a few years back on a 720p projector (would be nicer with better... but... it's what I have and it's pretty good) and painted a room dark matte colors to reduce reflection. I have a 5.1 Sony stereo which would make an audiofil cry, but unless I cover the room in noise dampening foam... so be it.
So, we can gather on a couch and watch movies in more comfort, eat better... I can have a beer or prosecco while watching... and I'll have spent maybe $90 by the time I'm done. And the wife and kids and snuggle on me while we watch the film.
Why in hell would anyone ever spend money on a movie theater? Sure it sounds extravagent to have your own home theater, but consider I spent less building it than it would have cost to go to the movies 8 times.
And then when we go out... which is often enough, we can walk around the city or at the cabins in the mountains overlooking the city and enjoy the view, talk with the people etc... going to the movies is basically paying to sit on someone else's couch and keep silent.
http://www.surmet.com/technology/alon-optical-ceramics/
Been done... feel free to buy some. It's mass produced now
hmm... I'm not sure if I'm with you on this. I agree it's hard to see this as a setback. I don't believe it is. I imagine we learned a great deal about the process from the failure and should be able to achieve better results the next time.
I don't have a clear understanding of how we could apply such science into applied engineering today, but I'm wondering if we learned a lot more than is visible on the surface. Let's consider that we now know how to create that much pressure. Let's also consider that we know that helium can actually become metallic.
Ok... let's also consider that once the material is compressed, the energy is stored and it may be possible the experts in forming diamond crystals will be able to engineer a more perfect structure for the containment of the metal without the need to apply additional pressure. It is also possible that as a room-temperature super conductor, we might be able to learn how to encapsulate liquid helium in a crystalline structure on a quasi-molecular (proper term?) level. We may be able to find a way to produce some sort of liquid like beads of minuscule room temperature superconductors. I may be possible to crystallize large amounts (billions of parts) of metallic hydrogen in arrays of crystal so that it might be etched.
We could also possible find that this could be an alternative method of storing large amounts of energy for use in space. Imagine a lightweight material able to propel a turbine within a generator as the energy is released? That could be a safer and more practical alternative to nuclear radiation. We would only need a method of storing the material in cells and releasing the material in a controlled fashion.
What about all the other options. While superconductivity is sexy, can this process be effectively applied to other materials? Could it be done on a large scale? Can this be a theoretical alternative method to producing nearly perfect structures as opposed to carbon nanotubes? Could we get the benefits of a perfect structure but on a larger scale? Could we find a way to push particles of other materials through a compression chamber of this sort to produce wires that are less volatile?
I would imagine that the scientists involved with this project have though in many of these same directions. They have likely thought in more. But I believe that at this point of their research, they need to learn more about the structure of the material they have created and hopefully identify better solutions to contain the compressed energy.
We live in a society where companies like Diesel who run major fashion lines and advertising campaigns to glorify stupid. In all fairness, Diesel was trying to suggest that one shouldn't always take the "smart and sensible path", but people wore shirts saying "Smart is ok, but stupid is fun". The people wearing that clothing seemed to believe that doing the stupid thing could be far more productive and constructive than having and idea and properly planning and executing it in a constructive manor.
We had a president who for 8 years told the American people that even as the son of one of the most powerful men in the world (Director of Central Intelligence or VP of the US as the time) was a C+ student... meaning that his professors, knowing there would be a call from one of the most powerful men on earth if they failed his son, gave him the lowest possible grade they thought they could get away with... in a business school. Now mind you, I really really like GWB, I think he is one of the nicest people on earth, a man with the absolute best intentions with a heart as pure as laboratory diamonds. Sadly, he's dumb as a brick and has absolutely no capacity for understanding the consequences of his decisions.
When presented with the choice of Al Gore who is only mildly more intelligent but at least as far as politicians are concerned is a mental giant or GWB, the American people felt they associated much better with GWB. Even though Al Gore would likely make decisions to improve the lives of all people and would do his absolute best to represent the emotional, spiritual, etc... interests of all Americans, he came off as too smart and too nerdy (and too much of a know it all) and the people sided with the C+ flunky who had a good heart and spoke to the people in a way that they could relate to. I don't believe that was a calculated action by GWB as I believe calculation of any type is not his strength. I believe his sheer dumbness allowed people to better love and identify with him. I feel terrible that now that I know more about him that I said so many bad things about him while he was in office. It was like picking on the slow kid at school who couldn't defend himself because he didn't even understand the insults. He might be one of the best people on earth at heart and as a representative of the vast majority of the American people, he was spectacular. Too bad he was also expected to provide leadership, manage money and a military a role he was clearly no suited for. This is a very strong case for separating the presidency into president and prime minister.
We also live in a society which glorifies hate and violence. We believe a child who dresses up in camouflage pajamas and spends 8 weeks in basic training should be called a hero for stepping up to protect the American way. Without having the slightest idea of what the American way is other than to dress up in said pajamas, he/she is placed in a position of ultimate judgement. He/she is expected to make conscientious decisions whether to take the life of a mother, a father, a son or a daughter. He is expected with no more experience than that of a child to represent the American people at the end of a gun and make judgement calls that have overwhelming impact on society as we know it. We call these children heroes and we praise them in media, advertisements and more. People forfeit business class and first class seats in support of their sacrifices for freedom.
Consider that that child, fresh out of high school will make $18,802.80 a year as a private and can easily escalate to $22,165.20 by doing their jobs with some level of diligence within a year. Also consider they are provided with excellent quality (though questionable tasting) food, excellent medical care, excellent dental benefits, clothing, housing, career education, transportation and college aid. Their quality of life and standard of living when not at war is approximately equal to a $60,000 a year job at the age of 18 with absolutely no education other than a Basic and AIT provided
Who brought up brown diamonds?
To be honest, NASA is bloody brilliant and should never be denounced for their awesomeness, I agree wholeheartedly that Apollo would have never happened without NASA. That said, there are endless projects that could never have happened without them. The amount of science and tech they feedback is incredible.
Now... SLS is a project which has dumped billions into the American economy and has been a major component of helping the US recover from the DotCom Boom and later financial distastes of this century. Companies like Lockheed, Boeing and others provide a great service as money launderers for congress trying to stimulate the economy in different regions. They however are bureaucratic cesspools of filth and decay that fail at 9 out of every 10 projects announced since many of those projects really were intended to do nothing more than just feed money into the economy.
SLS would have never happened if it weren't for private space.
How many failed space projects have there been since the original Space Shuttle?
How many years did we fly the Space Shuttle and perpetuate the life of the Space Shuttle before we finally decided we had to move on and finally make something more?
This is because the ULA guys and Boeing never actually needed to complete a project in order to get more money for not completing it. It is too much work to bid on and negotiate for a new space launch vehicle. So, it's better to drag each one out as long as possible milking the government for more funding. NASA has been crippled by the government contractors. What's more is that Boeing and ULA are just so damn big, there was no other companies that could meet the minimum requirements to bid on these contracts, so NASA couldn't even pack up and go somewhere else.
Enter SpaceX and others.
SpaceX has now consistently delivered on inexpensive flights, advancing technology, even making space interesting again. They are a company that survives on launch contracts and while they take funding and government money, as far as I can tell, in the entire lifetime of the company, they haven't taken even as much as just this one SLS contract.
Does this mean that SpaceX is better than government? Nope... but here's the thing, if ULA or Boeing doesn't deliver on space projects now, the government can ask SpaceX or BlueOrigin (who seems to be working with ULA surprisingly enough). This has changed the entire dynamic of the space program. It meant that the NASA, after over 40 years of what generally has always felt like corruption can actually expect their contractors to deliver.
It is also very likely that Boeing and ULA companies may actually save their reputations and do better in business because private space is forcing them to actually be better than they were. Just imagine what would happen if Musk or Bezos got into commercial passenger aircraft and decided to compete with the 787 for example. Planes would cost a tenth as much and be designed to have lower cost of ownership.
These companies have been cornerstones of American accomplishment but when the politicians found out that they could use these companies to stimulate the economy, they started looking for projects to dump money into no matter what the outcome. It was altruistic, but it established a precedent that said "You don't actually have to build anything, just make jobs". And for nearly 30 years, that's what they did.
The design of the SLS, while FRIGGING AWESOME!!!! is just too expensive and placed absolutely no focus on practicality. My guess is a room of NASA scientists and engineers looking at the design and shaking there heads and thinking "This is what we get for that much money?". The entire rocket is probably heavily based on the idea of "If you want something good, we can go back to the drawing board for 10 years, this one we can deliver now".
I loved and adored the Space Shuttle. As a small child when it was being built, I slept snuggling on a stuffed space shuttle doll. There are so many things that made the S
Snooper charter?
Let me respond... as an actual, real life, genuine, pure-blooded... recovering Jew... I can't tell whether I should take offense to this or laugh my ass off at it.
Please tell me that you have some Jewish in your blood line... 1/64th on your sister-in-law's mother's side is good enough. Unless you happen to be either a Jew, Gypsy, or.. well a plastic toy doll that sends everything children say to American servers for logging, it's just outright offensive that you would make such a comparison.
Also, I fear the lash-back that will come from the Dollocaust deniers.
P.S. - Recovering from Judaism is similar to recovering from alcohol addiction or Catholicism. Once you're in, you're in. There's nothing you can do which makes you any less Jewish culturally, you can deny it, you can fight it, but as soon as there's latkas and draydels and nagging old ladies gumming their lips peddling out guilt, it's all over.
As a father, I've had the displeasure of having PewDiePie as a regular member of my house. For example, me, ny son, my daughter and my niece were walking in Manhattan, which is in itself unlikely to happen as they live in Florida and we live in Norway. But we were on vacation with one another and my son and I were joking with each other and I said "You suck" and the two girls who see each other every second or third year simultaneously say "You swallow" which horrified me but apparently was a great bonding experience for the girls who immediately giggled, compared notes and came to the realization they're both primarily educated by PewDiePie.
I have been horrified and offended by PewDiePie before. Let me also say that as a recovering Jew, I lived growing up surrounded by family who were escapees, survivors, etc... of the holocaust. What I found is simple, if a Jew were to do something as stupid as what PewDiePie did, it would be distasteful irony, if anyone else did, it would be antisemitic.
Now, the Germans didn't systematically destroy 6 millions Jews and Gypsies and Black people. They systematically destroyed 6 million Jews, 5 million Gypsies and I have no idea about the black people, by I'd imagine the number would be horrifying as well. If you're going to be an SJW, you have to try and be at least a little close to right.
Let's settle some things... was Hitler anti-Jew (Antisemitic requires that the person is a semite. I challenge any European Jew to prove they are actually a semite), yes he was. Was he trying to eliminate Jews, by his own words and hand, he was. But only a filthy and disgusting person would call the holocaust the "Jewish Holocaust" because he was a pretty equal opportunity hater. He wanted to kill everyone that was easy to target. Jews, Gypsies and Blacks all have something in common, they are easy to find, they are clearly different than other people (at least visually) and it's really easy to convince massive numbers of people they are the cause of their problems.
Wanna see something horrifying, look at how easily Trump is manipulating people to get his "Great Wall of Trump" build so he'll accomplish immortality. He is using the same sort of gifts and rhetoric that Hitler used. He'll give anyone anything they want so long as they let him build that wall. He'll tell us all "we're better than those dark skinned Mohammad lovers are... they're trying to kill us.. those Mexicans want to take your jobs, your homes and your daughters, let me build that wall!!!!"
Now, here's the thing... PewDiePie is a moron. He has made himself rich and famous by being a one man Jack-Ass Online show. His audience is a massive number of young and impressionable children and what has he now taught them? He taught them that it's a sick world where people would be willing to hold such horrible signs for $5. He showed that people would be willing to sell their souls for $5.
It's disgusting in my opinion that children should learn something so terrible at such a young age. What he did taught first world children about how bad life is for some people that $5 is the price of their conscience. He showed that people could be easily bought or manipulated for almost nothing. I'm 100% sure that the people holding those signs didn't believe in them, I am also pretty sure that the guy in Sri Lanka was more concerned about how long he could live on that $5. I don't think he knows or cares about who Hitler was. But I also know that he can be bought for $5.
Dude, I think what he did was a service. I think that out of all the stupid shit he's said and done, he's actually done something right for once. I think he demonstrated outright how easy it is to convince people "Hitler Good, Jew Bad". He showed that a person in that type of position will go where he/she believes the food is. It takes very very little to convince people to dispose of the last good thing left in their hearts when there's nothing left in their stomachs.
What could you ask a man/women do for $10 or a promise of $5
I think that this is a very short sighted opinion on their behalf. First of all, we're all facing a market where there will be too many people and too few jobs. In a circumstance like that, we need to be prepared with and organized method of supporting the people while trying to identify alternative sources of jobs.
In America, they faced this problem and GWB and Obama provided a work solution where instead of reeducating people and producing real jobs, they employed 3 million American's directly in military (over a million), the TSA (over 1.2 million) and the DHS and other agencies. In addition, they employed many more indirectly since for every employee you employ, a series of support employees will be needed. They paid their employees large enough sums to redistribute the wealth a few levels and create many Walmart and McDonalds jobs. In addition, the government took on the burden of covering a substantial portion of employee salaries for large job makers. For example, Walmart pays minimum wage but provides support to their employees to help them register for government benefits such as welfare and food stamps... all while Walmart pays dividends roughly equal to what the government is paying to support their employees.
The truth is, America has proven what happens when you have a very large unskilled workforce with very little education. But they decided that instead of basic income which could provide these people the opportunity to study and improve themselves, they would instead give them jobs which would be better than just having people laying around doing nothing. Instead, now they stand around doing nothing while wearing uniforms. A very large part of the money the TSA and DHS consumes can be recovered by taxing people using the airports and immigration systems. Currently, over 70% of the cost of a coach plane ticket to the U.S. is to cover TSA and DHS USCIS fees.
Finland is trying an alternative method. Instead of dooming people to an existence of nothingness where their only value to the world is to wear a uniform that makes you look like a prison inmate at airports, they are trying to see if they can motivate people to do more than just keep a sofa from floating away by providing enough money to scrape by on to the truly unambitious while hoping the people will use it as an opportunity to do something more.
Many of the people could use this opportunity to start "work from home" businesses or can afford to help someone else start a company doing something. As a programmer, I would welcome a government stipend that would support me and my family long enough to develop a product that would take 2-3 years to make but wouldn't ever be made if I had to earn money to feed myself while doing it. I could make far better products if I wasn't desperate to meet certain deadlines like "mortgage must be paid".
There's also the issue that I on average pay about 12 times as much tax as the average person. I actually pay about 6 full middle class salaries worth of tax each year. I would like some of that money to be paid to intelligent and creative people who want to start businesses but can't because they can't feed themselves while they're getting started.
This program is just an alternative to what the American's did. GWB and Obama on behalf of America chose to implement a form of communism (almost Soviet style) to solve the problem of too many people and not enough jobs. They made a lot of shit jobs for stupid people and locked them into them by paying them more than they were worth and guaranteeing they couldn't leave as no one would pay them as much.
Finland is hoping that instead of ruining their population by beating them down into a greater depth of stupidity, they can provide them the means to have an opportunity to be creative and hopefully create new business that wouldn't be as easily susceptible to being replaced by outsourcing or automation. That could be more services, it could be more careers related to arts or vanity. There are endless opportunities, but with
It seems that most people on slashdot like to talk about things they speculate on as though they are authorities on the topic.
Insurance companies are in business to make money.
If people chose one insurance company over another because of price and restrictions, the rules of the first company will adapt to attract new customers.
Insurance companies almost certainly will try to find a way to profit more from self-driving cars but when there's more profit to be made, one company will offer better terms than another causing the other to respond in kind. Eventually, once the terms leave both companies relatively profitable, the consumer will likely have pretty good terms in the contract and no reason to move to someone else.
I've now read like 10 articles and 1000 comments this morning and it seems to me that everyone is an expert on everything and most of us just simply talk utter nonsense without thinking at all about what we're saying.
As for this topic, let's just assume for now that insurance will be expensive to start with and will come down quickly because their customers can just leave them.
I have driven in many European cities and I think the point you're missing is related to the attitude behind the driving.
Mediterranean bordering countries are a special exception to... well every rule ever made. Ask them, they believe it too.
If you're talking about Amsterdam, self driving cars will never work, but I give it less than 5 years before cars are simply illegal within the main city. They just passed that rule in Oslo, Norway. After June, it will be illegal to drive within the inside ring of the city except for deliveries. If you consider someplace like Enschede or Tilburg, it will work perfectly. This has to do with organized management of pedestrian and bicycle traffic. You'll also see more effort placed on providing pedestrian tunnels for crossing main roads which has been very successful for safety in many places. Of course that's really not an option in Amsterdam.
It won't work anywhere in France or Italy. These are countries where you drive like a frigging mad man and ram yourself into traffic and just pray you make it. I am still shaking in fear 5 years later from the last time I drove in Paris. I have never encountered more mean spirited drivers anywhere in the world. I honestly think the drivers in Paris believe that they are on earth purely to punish each other.
I think Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, well... pretty much anywhere you have civilized people, self-driving cars will be faster than human driven ones... especially when they consider queue management and we can merge lanes at 70km/h instead of 1km/h. Also when the cars have proper traffic information and can make better choices for driving and directions. Traffic lights can talk with cars and change based on actual queue information.
It's not about just the immediate area surrounding the car, it's about the overall traffic environment. Queue management functions substantially better when viewed as a big picture than if every car manages itself.
Agreed,
... NO!!!!
First of all, I like that Ford decided to do this outside of their company. Ford has always been piss-poor at technology. I've rented many of their "better cars" and have been horrified by how poorly they work from a technical aspect. Even the door locks always feel like the "budget model". Every time they try to build technology in-house they fail. For example, when they used Microsoft's car system for the stereo and then made it impossible to update the software without bringing it to the factory. As a result, they released a version and thought "wow, that's shipped... next product" and when bug reports came in, they were confused... actually outright clueless.
Ford can make engines and gears and seats. They sure as hell can't build computers. Need proof, show me a Ford which has an ignition computer which isn't utterly stupid. I actually found myself in a Mustang pulling to the side of the highway, shutting off the car, locking the doors and unlocking and starting it again to reboot computers. They can manufacture big metal things. As for making new technology
As such, as you said, Ford has to think about what to do in case self-driving happens and then we start getting rules which say "No human driven cars on main roads" which I personally will contribute to the lobbying effort for. I want human drivers off the roads I use ASAP. Driving sucks and it's mostly because of "good drivers". So, if self-driving cars work and even become mandatory, Ford needs a solution and they know they can't possibly do it themselves. So, throw a bunch of money at some people who can do it and then give them the cars they should do it in.
Companies will also try to increase their business. If you don't have to pay the driver, you can afford to decrease the rates you charge for the car.
Marking up a car as much as you can is "within what the market will bare". If your goal is to be more profitable, you will exploit all avenues. You can't be someone smart enough to build a self driving car taxi company and then be so dumb as to shoot yourself in the foot by pricing yourself out of the range of what customers will pay.
In my experience, if you can afford to buy more expensive cars (you have good credit) then you can have a car which is pretty reliable and relatively low cost to maintain. In addition, you can maintain a relatively high resell price which means that often it costs less to drive an expensive car than a cheap one over a period of 4 years. That is of course if you maintain that car properly. If you simply drive cars into the ground, the cheaper car is probably... well cheaper.
So that said, if I could pay a self driving car to pick me up at around 6:30 and drive me to the nearby train station, then pick me up from the same train station around 17:00 and drive me home, I would gladly stop driving my own car. I pay about $1000 a month to drive, that includes car payments, the occasional cost of using a fast charger, parking, etc... when I consider resell value, I can adjust that to about $600 a month. If I could get driven 7km each day for about $10 a day, I would pay about $200 a month for the car and about $100 a month for the train. If there are 3 other people in the car also paying $10 a day which is extremely likely and the car is used for more trips which is also likely, that's car could likely generate $200 a day revenue. For 20 days a month on average, that would be about $4,000 per car per day. Consider car payments, insurance and charging to consume about half that. If I owned five of those cars, I would generate a mediocre income on top of my normal income.
PS, I drive new cars because of things like EU control. If you own a new electric car, it cost almost nothing compared even to a gas car you got for free but is out of warranty. Consider the insanely high gas prices as well. Used electric cars are stupid because after 4 years, you might as well just toss the batteries.
Agreed!!!
Let's just stop making the cars and do whatever is possible to kill the enthusiasm that has convinced Ford to make a huge investment in this technology. I think we should just give up and all become naysayers and just keep doing it the same way we always have.
Shhh... if you say it like that, people might think that there isn't a proper conspiracy or cronyism.
We're not allowed to ever suggest on slashdot that choosing a Microsoft product over something else could be because people decided they just prefer to use the Microsoft products and understand how to do business with them better.
I'd imagine that a big part of it is "We are skilled with Microsoft products and can provide you better support if you're using Microsoft products especially since we can call Microsoft if we need to get support".
I hate how those bastards work
I thought I wouldn't be dead in 40 or so years.
Should I convert now or can I sign some sort of promissory note which says that if I'm still alive in 100 years, I'll convert?
Is there any particular reason why we wouldn't want to have the choice between different systems like Linux, Windows and Mac?
I have to admit, I kinda like Windows, I really miss Windows 8, but Windows 10 works too. I generally don't use Linux on the desktop since I personally can't use most versions of Gnome because well... it's just too ugly to look at and KDE is more of an academic project than a product anymore. I sometimes use Mac which is okish but doesn't handle a lot of open applications well and gets REALLY REALLY REALLY slow when you've been programming on it for a while. It's nice for Netflix and stuff.
I do use Linux extensively though. I use it a lot more now that I can run Ubuntu on Windows. I used Linux exclusively for 6 years, I'm really happy I'm past that phase, I spent most of my time fixing the compiler and fixing the kernel.
That is good... if LibreOffice works for light usage in your environment... excellent!!!
I am also glad you've confirmed that you've spent lots of money on computers for your personal use which not-surprisingly perform better than corporate PCs which generally are far less expensive per unit and have a greater focus on manageability than performance. As for the Nvidia graphics thing... pretty cool man. I'm glad to hear that 3D graphics chips are making your LibreOffice presentations rock.
There are many people out there that have different needs than you and I would imagine that in the city of Munich, they have different needs than you. They might want to focus on operating their city instead of writing bug fixes for LibreOffice.
In about 80 years of programming languages, there have been a few examples of companies which have managed to turn programming languages and runtimes into something which turned a profit, but generally not many and not for long.
COBOL - Microfocus and a few other have turned a buck on COBOL but mainly because no one really wanted to bother implementing and supporting a competitor. In reality, COBOL support is what is turning a profit, not the language itself. Oh and Microfocus never tried to own the language or runtime.
Powerbase - Same genre of languages as COBOL and again focused on business coding. This one turned a profit until other tools because easier to use and more supported.
DBase, FoxPro, etc... - They did well until we moved on. Aston Tate somehow managed to make a huge business out of selling a business programming language. But all good things come to an end... especially when the competition released something better...like for example and Oracle SQL server... which is actually what killed DBase.
I can go on for a while, but to be fair, Oracle failed something horrible if the business geeks didn't do their jobs and thought a programming language could count as something profitable. They simply aren't. Even now, most users of Java aren't using Java but the platform and while Android is implementing a subset of the Java APIs, they don't implement the platform. Most users are now using language like Closure which offer a Java compatible experience but without the Java. The sad part is, since Oracle isn't adopting those other technologies, they will be responsible for destroying the Java market.
I think probably the thing that really ruined Java is that they named the Language, the byte code and the runtime all the same thing. As such, Oracle doesn't properly support their platform.
Regarding your signature.
"Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has shown us how to defeat men like Trump. Learn from Dr. King's example."
I believe very strongly I learned a great deal more from MLK which taught me it's not necessary to defeat men like Trump. We should instead speak his language and try and make him see that it's important to represent us, not just try and make it into history books as the most famous president ever.
Trump has thus far only performed in ways that would rile the rabble. He's adopting historically proven methods of garnering support with absolute disregard to the health of the people to be able to leave on mark on the planet. He'll toss out a bunch of useless gun regulation because the loudest Americans will sing him praise for it. He'll try to build a wall that can be seen from space but will have no real impact. He'll have 100 million people marching in the streets singing "God Bless America" waving flags and naming their babies Donald. He'll be taught about in history books for a thousand years. He will be immortal.
So, if we want something from him. If we want to be represented. We have to see if there's something we can give him that he wants. He wants immortality. He wants to be more historically famous than even the first black president (who he seems to hate). How can we give him infamy and immortality so that he can give us something in return.
Remember Obama failed at absolutely everything he did in office. He used the RIAA and MPAA as the DOJ. He took a housing crisis and through money at it instead of offering a solution that could have worked... like for example, making the banks move people who could afford $100,000 houses out of $250,000 houses and people who could afford $250,000 houses out of houses that cost $500,000 etc... he pushed through bills with nifty names like ACA and "The new new deal" which sounded great but weren't worth the paper they were printed on since he didn't care what the bills said, as long as they had the right name and he got credit. He was a great guy and I loved him, but holy shit, he was so bad at being president, he deserves to sit at a dinner table with Clinton, Bush and Bush.
Most presidents are genuinely good people who genuinely want to do the right thing for the people. Even Nixon was mostly a good person. But what they all have in common is that they generally suck at it. The American democracy is in shambles. There are 400 million people who more or less only ever agree that they are better than each other. Otherwise the country is sick and it's sick enough to elect a person like Donald Trump.
Remember, Donald will be about the same as every other president. He'll do things, they'll be stopped or overthrown. He'll be reigned in eventually. A president can't just do whatever he wants. That was the whole point of building a country that was meant to deter the rise of a tyranny. But he can do some stuff and it would be very good if we could learn how to work with him to give him fame while giving us a better place to live. It is absolutely clear that he'll do just about anything to get an extra paragraph about how awesome he is in an encyclopedia. Let's see if we can make it happen.
Dr, MLK was not about defeating anyone. To defeat someone, you have to accept them as an enemy. MLK had no enemies. He embraced people and broke down barriers. If you really wish to do that man justice, you have to realize that there are far better ways to make the world a better place than to pick fights.
Honestly, blind traders are a burden on society. What i mean by blind traders is that people who are simply running gambling algorithms and living by the "buy low sell high" rule are a curse on society. It's also what makes it so that people lose tens of thousands of jobs due to "restructuring" because algorithmic traders won't generate trade volume unless someone publishes something in the newspaper. I actually have been sickened by the disgusting concept of a trading floor for decades. It's a group of ass hats running around from buzz to buzz and buying and selling things they don't understand and ruining lives.
Laws should be passed requiring traders to have to apply for permission to make each trade. What I mean is that all traders even the small ones should have the same requirements that major share holders have. So, you should be able to buy in, but you would have to release a statement of intent to trade and wait 7 days before the transaction takes place.
There is a disgusting belief, almost like a religion that suggests that gambling on shares with absolutely no regard for how it impacts society as a whole is "Free Market" and "Democracy". Bullshit. Gambling on stocks IS NOT the same as investing in companies. What is worse is that when you gamble on stocks, you believe you have the right to demand a company behaves in any way it takes to increase the value of those stocks to make you a profit. That's filth. It causes shitbacks at major companies to lay off 20% of their workforce and outsource to India because it will generate the buzz which will cause trading volumes to skyrocket. And if the direction is up, people will rake it in, if it's down, they'll short the hell out of it. And yet, you just killed a city and can't even tell me what the company actually does.
I will shit all over HFT and algorithmic trading because it legitimizes shitting all over millions of peoples lives without even having the first idea what company you're actually effecting. The stock market isn't like a casino. If you win or lose in a casino, only the casino and a small number of people may be impacted. When you treat wall street as a casino where you are allowed to count cards, you and your peers can actually destroy the financial health of entire cities. A program with a bug could collapse an entire company within a few seconds destroying lives.
Yes, I know there are upsides to trading as well. It gives legitimate investors a way to abandon sinking ships for example. This gives legitimate investors a better reason to make the investment when it's needed. But the downsides far outweigh the upsides.
Trading is a predatory business/career that focuses entirely on profit with absolutely no regard for the peoples lives it impacts.
Maybe trading should be restricted to only company stocks that are related to dumping trash in oceans, distributing child labor, sex trafficking and so forth. Trading requires about the same moral compass.
Learning to program and learning to program a specific language are two entirely different things. Generally avoid looking for "Learn to program C" books and instead look for "Learn to program using C" books.
.NET which is very similar to the Java infrastructure but properly supports dozens of programming languages with a great base set of libraries. C# as a language is very feature rich and while it's possible to write truly horrible code in it, it's also very easy to make very clean and good code in it. From within Visual Studio or Visual Studio for Mac, you can code natively for all major platforms and Microsoft also has good quality moderated forums that means when you have questions, you get help from constructive people more often than from trolls.
There are clear differences between programmer and educated programmers as well. Anyone can learn to program fairly quickly. Possibly using some of these "hour of code" projects you'll find online would be quite effective. What you really need is something that will kick start you and get you coding in something that will allow you to make things.
I highly recommend against using system languages like C to get start programming. While it's definitely possible to make a program that adds numbers together and displays the output, writing an type of application with a user interface on Windows, Mac or Linux using C will require understanding complex memory management topics. In addition, on Windows, you'd use the Windows API, Linux you'd probably use GTK+ and on Mac you're basically screwed as you would need very complex systems like Swig to expose the application development API to C. All these systems require a fairly strong understanding of programming in C before you even consider using them.
At this point in time I tend to recommend for simplicity using Python as a starting point. The drawback to this is that Python is an incredible language but it has evolved into one of the ugliest systems as there seems to be no control over the trash that can be contributed to the libraries surrounding it. In some ways that's precisely what makes Python ideal as an option. When you code in Python as long as your indentation follows the rules, absolutely everything else, no matter how bad it might be is considered perfectly good Python programming.
There are programming generations as well. Languages come and go. There is always on dominant language used by the most people due to the "anything goes" mantra which draws a lot of learners and hackers. It was BASIC, Pascal, Visual Basic, Perl, PHP and now Python. Python is special because you can actually do the right thing in it if you know how. It can actually be used as a real programming language. The main problem is that most people contributing to it don't know how.
I personally recommend that people learn to program now using C#. The reason is that it's a balanced language that offers a bit of the best of all worlds. Using C#, you can write an operating system (except the initial boot code), you can write a state of the art video game, you can write a business system etc... while many languages can do this, C# is fully supported (with GUI) on Windows, Mac and Linux as well as for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Android and Windows Phone. The learning curve to developing for most of these systems (with GUI and user interaction) is substantially lower than when using something like Swift. Swift itself is a fairly ok language, but while it's open source, it isn't terribly useful for anything other than Apple programming and it's main selling point is "It's not Objective-C" and yet borrows a bit too much from Objective-C.
C# is a great tool as unlike other languages, it's part of a proper infrastructure focused on compatibility, evolution and portability. C# is based on
Some people mention Java. The problem with Java is generally lack of platform support. Java works great on Android, but on Windows, Linux, Mac, you have to use the JVM which causes constant pain to the user