let alone a brand new one launched by Folding@Home
Bitcoin is decentralized. Folding@Home isn't. If somebody can come up with a way to do and verify Folding@Home-like tasks completely independent on any central server it may become popular.
Because if you have a central server, then mining becomes completely pointless - why waste energy calculating anything - just have the central server confirm the transactions, like it is done in banks.
Bitcoin's idea isn't "you can generate coins doing sha256", it's completely decentralized currency, not dependent on any single server or company and the mining is a way to confirm transactions without having that single server that everybody trusts. So, the algorithm used has to meet certain criteria: 1. It has to be difficult to calculate, but easy to independently verify by anyone even without special equipment. 2. The difficulty should be predictable (but not completely - there has to be some variance) and adjustable. 3. No need of a central server 4. The result has to take up as little disk space as possible.
Hash functions fit these requirements perfectly - 1.it takes a long time to find the correct data to make the block hash fit the requirements. 2.It is very easy to verify. 3.It is easy to predict how long it will take someone to find a block on average, but not possible to accurately know. 4.The difficulty is adjustable. 5.Anyone can verify the block - no nerd of a central server 6.The result is only 32 bytes long
1. Using a separate service (Folding@Home etc) makes Bitcoin centralized an dependent on that service.
2. How easy/difficult is it to check the folding results compared to calculating them in the first place? Hash functions are nice in that in the way they are used for Bitcoin, it is very difficult to mine a block, but very easy to check the block. You could make an altcoin that uses "next x digits of Pi" as the PoW algorithm, but then every node will have to do the same calculations just to check the blocks.
3. How much space do the Folding/etc results take? Bitcoin blockchain is almost 500k blocks long, if the results took 1MB per block, it would be 500GB just for the PoW.
Real capitalism simply means the right to contract with who you want, when you want, for what you want, and to be secure in your person and property, and have the right to use your own property for whatever you wish and to do business with whoever you wish, so long as you do not initiate aggression against the person or property of someone else.
That fails on a large scale just like communism fails on a large scale
Real free market needs there to be a lot of sellers who offer similar goods, and it also requires everyone to be well-informed and acting rationally. In practice, there are huge costs to enter some markets (say, the CPU industry) just because of the technologies involved. That results in those markets being dominated by one or two companies (how many spinning hard drive manufacturers are there?). This then results in the buyer having little to no choice, especially if the few companies make some sort of agreement to fix prices etc.
Similar in the job market - the employer usually has more power than the employee, unless the employees form a union or something like that. Since there are fewer employers than employees, especially in some industries, the companies can make an agreement to, say, force the employees to work 16 hours per day without vacation days. Regulation is needed here too - I do not think that you would want to work in a factory the way people did 150 years ago, after all, the regulations came into effect after the businesses proved that they could not regulate themselves.
Another interesting bit of history I read - early railroad companies did not care about safety, since they saw maintenance as an expense that could be reduced. So what if a rusty boiler explodes or there is a train collision because the signalman was not supplied with fuel for signal lamps? It may be cheaper than maintaining all locomotives etc. Another example is the US railroad companies continuing to use older style couplers that were very dangerous even when a safer design was available. Why? Well, it was cheaper to hire new employees to replace the ones who were killed or maimed by the train than to replace all couplers.
We see similar things now with information security.
Passing and ignoring laws shows a tyrannical government. There was a saying in the USSR - "give us the person, we will find a law that he broke". You may be doing the smae things as everybody else, but if you piss of someone with a bit of power, they will get you, because some things everyone is doing are actually illegal, just not enforced. But they will make an exception for you and enforce the law.
It is good for you that you are an actual capitalist (somebody who earns a living from accumulated capital), but a lot of people are not capitalists - they earn money by working for a company.
Importing cheap labor lowers prices (hopefully) and helps the consumer in the short term, however, it hurts the economy in the long term. If the locals are unwilling to live in the low standard of living that the foreigners are accustomed to (10 people sharing a room etc), then it places a definite minimum on the salary they are willing to accept (it should at least pay for rent and food). If you want to lower the salary even further, then they just might stop working and live on welfare.
Then you will still be paying them (from your taxes), but they won't do anything useful to you. And they won't have enough money to buy your luxury goods.
So, I guess, true capitalists would like a country where vast majority of locals are on welfare, foreigners doing their jobs for small salaries and living in bad conditions, while the banks and corporations rake in profits by selling their stuff to other countries (since nobody in the USA can afford them).
Or, the company should specify what salary it is going to pay the employee. Then the limited number of visas issued to those who are willing to pay the highest salaries.
At some point it will become cheaper to hire a local or even pay a local to learn the skill and then hire him. If the skills required are truly rare, then it is only fair that the employee should get a huge salary.
I think that the big should be salary. If the employee you need has to have skills that are really rare (everybody with those skills in the USA are already employed), then you will be ready to pay him a lot.
Or maybe you will find a US citizen willing to work for less than what is needed to get the foreigner in.
I wouldn't know how easy or difficult it is to program, but when I drive, I assume that the other drivers may make a mistake (just like I sometimes make a mistake) and I use caution, even if I have the priority. Doubly so around big vehicles, like trucks and buses, since they may need more time to stop.
For example: 1.I am at an uncontrolled intersection, planning to turn right. I see a car from my left, it has its right turn signal on. That would mean that the other driver will turn to the street I am currently in and, as such, I can turn right with no problem. However, the other driver may have forgot to turn his turn signal off and is actually planning to go straight. So, I wait until I see the other car slowing down (ok, he actually is planning to turn), then I turn right and go on. 2. If I saw the truck reversing like in the TFA picture, I should either go around it (if possible) or stop at least a few meters away from it. A truck is big and it reverses slowly, so the situation should have been visible from far away. 3.When at an uncontrolled intersection, I assume all other cars have lost their brakes and will go straight and at constant velocity, then I try to figure out if I have the time to go and not get hit or I should wait. It does not matter if the street I am on is the primary. When I see the other cars slow down to let me trough, then I go.
Essentially, I do not want to get in an accident, even if that accident would not be my fault. Even if the other guy's insurance paid for straightening out my car, it still is extremely inconvenient as taking care of the paperwork takes time and then I would not have my car for the time it takes to repair the damage.
Also, maybe if the shuttle had a human driver, he would have been more careful near a semi truck and stopped further from it. I assume that the visibility from a big truck is quite poor and keep my distance.
Nail some 2x2's on the side and you can climb almost any wall, then you just need a knotted rope to get down.
If you climb over the wall, you may be detected easier (it probably is possible to detect when something is climbing the wall), the wall may have barbed wire on the top and, if caught, you will not be able to say that you somehow managed to get here by accident ("I thought this was still Mexico"). At least this is my opinion.
As for a Muslim US President - well, that day I would be really happy with the government of my country, even if it is corrupt. Islam does not seem to be compatible with the Western way of life. Also, a Muslim President would be another problem IMO - it would be very difficult to criticize his policies (especially if those policies were even partially based on his religion) without somebody calling you a racist. That is, you can criticize a Christian politician for banning abortions as much as you want, but criticizing a Muslim politician for the same policy would be more difficult.
I personally do not consider myself a racist, but I would consider myself "behavior"-ist or "culture"-ist. That is, I really do not care about the color of your skin (Muslim is not a race by the way), as long as you behave the same as everybody else in the area. If you behave differently, then I will consider the differences and decide whether I like you or not. However, if a bunch of people who look similar are behaving the same, but it is different from the norm, then I may have a problem. For example, a man behaving like an asshole towards his wife or women in general - well, he's just an asshole. A big group of men behaving like that is a problem though. And if more members of that group want to immigrate, I will be against it, we have enough assholes already. Either stop being an asshole or - if that behavior is normal in your country - stay in your country.
In my opinion, immigrants and refugees pose several problems: 1. They demand welfare from the government. Money, that could be used to support our own poor people. Some immigrants have the audacity to demand more money than the locals get. 2. If they do not want to assimilate into our culture then there will always be some friction between us. 3. The immigrants are more likely to be common criminals. 4. The immigrants and their children are more likely to be terrorists (this seems to be exclusive to Muslims). 5. They might reduce the salaries of locals by offering to work cheaper (this applies more to more wealthy countries).
If you don't want to get tazed or shot, do not try to fight with a cop.
In my opinion, if you try to fight with a cop, you should get shot. Though it is a bit different in my country, where criminals are considered above all the other people.
I also do not think that Trump would bother with the ex-employee, because if he wanted to sue somebody, he would sue Twitter and then let Twitter figure out what to do with the ex-employee. Though I do not think that he will sue Twitter for this either.
However, Twitter may try to preempt a lawsuit by Trump with a lawsuit against the ex-employee in an effort to show that "yes, we did not authorize this, he/she did this on their own etc".
Yes, but if you are going to antagonize the government, then better make sure everything you do is squeaky clean, all papers are correct form, signed, all "i"s dotted and "t"s crossed. Because if you piss the government off enough, it will most likely find something to use against you.
Also, just because someone may or may not be a citizen, does not give us an excuse to use different rules. Nothing good comes of that path.
People living in a country illegally are breaking the law (obviously) and should be punished with jail time and then deportation. The idea is to make it unprofitable to live in a country illegally. Living with a constant fear of being caught and deported is one way of achieving that. Declaring illegals to be outside the protection of the law may be another.
It is similar to how drunk drivers are punished in my country. If you drive drunk and get caught, you get punished, that's obvious. But you may also be punished for an accident that you did not cause. In an effort to reduce the number of drunk drivers, the government in my country passed a new law. If there is an accident involving more than one car and one of the drivers is drunk, then he is automatically guilty of the accident
That means, if you are stopped at a red light and somebody rear-ends you: 1. You are guilty of the accident and will pay a fine for causing an accident while drunk (higher fine than just the accident or just driving drunk), they may even take your license for a few months. 2. Your insurance company may refuse to pay so you may have to fix the other guy's car from with own money. 3. Your insurance payment will definitely be higher for a few years because of this.
And this is just so driving drunk would carry more risk than the usual increased risk of an accident and the risk of getting caught.
Building it myself is cheaper and more customizable.
I may want to use a rackmount case that I already have (or buy a new one), use the power supply, hard drive, sound card etc that I already have. This way I only pay for the components I need right now. When building a new main PC (that I also use for games), I usually keep the old video card for a while, until I buy a new one when it is clear that the old one is too slow. That way I do not have to spend as much money at once.
But it works. Slower, sure, but you can still copy the files etc.
It also kinda matches expectations - older PC (USB-1 or USB-2) - the new external hard drive works slower, I guess this is because the PC is old and slow. New external hard drive (blue connector) works faster when connected to a new PC compared to an older external hard drive - well, it's newer, so it's faster.
Why not have the power supply built into at least the larger models?
A device that connects to the wall outlet needs to pass safety inspection (with probably different requirements for different countries), which costs money. Using an external power supply is a way around this - the power supply design has to pass the inspection once, then you can use it for multiple laptop models, which are not "low voltage" devices, and, as such, do not need to pass the inspection.
Another way around this is to make the internal power supply completely separate with its own case etc (like it is on a desktop PC), but, I guess, that would take up too much space and cost the manufacturer money.
In addition, the laptop gets hot and the power supply gets hot, with an internal power supply, the laptop would need even more cooling.
But I agree with you that I will not buy a full-sized laptop without RJ45 port. Something like a palmtop PC can get away with a dongle, but not a full-sized laptop. I would also like a serial port, but nobody seems to be making laptops with them anymore.
The power supply of my laptop is rated for 120W, I kinda doubt that the USB-C connector will be able to supply that power without melting (or me having to dip it into contact cleaner every time I want to plug it to ensure ideal connection).
I do not really like the physical connector of USB-C. It may be good for a small device like a phone or a UMPC, but there should be a bigger version for a normal laptop and desktop. The small connector (similar size to micro-USB, but more pins) looks like it would wear out and become intermittent much faster than USB-A. Also, it looks like the connector (cable end) could become shorted, but have high enough resistance not to trip the SCP of the power supply resulting in a melted connector.
That is ignoring the fact that some USB-C devices will not work with some USB-C pors no matter what OS and driver you use, because the required hardware protocols are not implemented.
This works, for a while. Joe can buy a cheaper TV (though when his salary is reduced, he may no longer afford a higher quality TV) or a car, but when he needs a service (lawyer, doctor, insurance, taxi, internet etc) or locally produced things (electricity, water, some food) he has to pay US prices. As a result, he now has less money even though buying a cheaper TV or car saved him some money once.
Suppose Joe Sixpack buys cheap foreign solar panels. It really doesn't matter if the money for the panels went overseas, because Joe's going to spend the money he's saving on his electricity bill on other stuff right here in the US.
Or, he is going to buy a new TV, made not in the US, or a new car, made by US company, but not in the US, or a new cellphone, made by US company, but not in the US etc.
After a while, his emplyer calls him and tells him that the company (which made things in the US) is failing and all the manufacturing jobs are going to China, so Joe now has four options: 1. Become unemplyed. 2. continue doing hisjob, but for the same salary as he Chinese workers get. 3. Learn Chinese and move to China, where he would work for the Chinese salary, but at least his living expenses will be lower. 4. Become an investor or CEO of a company, assuming he has a few tens or hundreds of millions stashed away somewhere.
They find it a huge load off to not have to be constantly monitoring every bit about you drive
But now you have to constantly monitor every bit about how the AI drives. Especially since you may have to take control in less than a second, because you will always recognize the problem later than normal, since you expect the AI to take care of it and only notice when the AI doesn't do that in a normal fashion ("Hmm, there is a huge hole in the road, the AI is going to stop... Oh shit!! The AI did not start braking at the normal distance now I have to brake or swerve into a less deep ditch.").
Part of the irony of EAP is that as they improve it, it may actually lead to more accidents.
I completely agree. If anyone doubts it, do a simple experiment: there are websites where you can measure your reaction time. Usually you have to wait for a signal and then click a button as quickly as possible. Try to do that with the wait time before the signal set to about 10 seconds, and then set it to an hour. I am sure that after staring at the screen for an hour you will react slower than waiting for 10 seconds. OTOH, manual driving is more like waiting for a second or even playing a FPS game - you are engaged all the time, so the reaction time is the fastest.
Sure you'll watch the road like a hawk for the first few weeks...
This raises a question - if I have to pay as much or more attention to the road as if I am driving the car manually, then why would I need this feature? At least driving the car manually keeps me alert since I have to respond often instead of once every two hours.
The problem is that the current "autopilot" is pretty much like being a driving instructor.
The student (or in this case, autopilot) drives, but you have to be always looking out for his mistakes and prepared to take control in an instant.
Also, in this case the "student" is high or something because, while he usually does not do the mistakes other students do (forgetting a turn signal, missing a red traffic signal) he ma, once in a while, not notice a huge 18-wheeler just in front of him.
I'm sorry, the lightbulb on my time machine burned out, indicating a wrong year, let's try that again:
"I do not want to spend time choosing the music, opening apps, going through menus, searching for folders and playlists, waiting for Youtube to load, searching for the next song on Youtube, connecting my cellphone etc."
Honestly though I find tapes and MDs to be more convenient in addition to the fact that I already have a lot of tapes with the music I like. I think I could get the same songs on digital (without spending weeks or months recording from the tapes), then make "virtual tapes" - playlists, record all to a USB drive or a SD card and play that on a compatible player or a phone, selecting the playlist I want, but that seems just too much effort, when I can just grab a tape or a minidisc and a player. Recording from a CD/record I just bought (or MP3/flac/wav I just downloaded) to either a tape or MD is not that inconvenient compared to recording from the tapes to a PC format.
Recording music from a record or other analog source is easier with a tape, recording from a PC is easier with a MD, or at least faster. But both tapes and MDs have advantages and disadvantages for me compared to each other, so I use them both depending on circumstance.
Slashdot Mirror
let alone a brand new one launched by Folding@Home
Bitcoin is decentralized. Folding@Home isn't. If somebody can come up with a way to do and verify Folding@Home-like tasks completely independent on any central server it may become popular.
Because if you have a central server, then mining becomes completely pointless - why waste energy calculating anything - just have the central server confirm the transactions, like it is done in banks.
Bitcoin's idea isn't "you can generate coins doing sha256", it's completely decentralized currency, not dependent on any single server or company and the mining is a way to confirm transactions without having that single server that everybody trusts. So, the algorithm used has to meet certain criteria:
1. It has to be difficult to calculate, but easy to independently verify by anyone even without special equipment.
2. The difficulty should be predictable (but not completely - there has to be some variance) and adjustable.
3. No need of a central server
4. The result has to take up as little disk space as possible.
Hash functions fit these requirements perfectly -
1.it takes a long time to find the correct data to make the block hash fit the requirements.
2.It is very easy to verify.
3.It is easy to predict how long it will take someone to find a block on average, but not possible to accurately know.
4.The difficulty is adjustable.
5.Anyone can verify the block - no nerd of a central server
6.The result is only 32 bytes long
It looks nice, however, it has multiple problems:
1. Using a separate service (Folding@Home etc) makes Bitcoin centralized an dependent on that service.
2. How easy/difficult is it to check the folding results compared to calculating them in the first place? Hash functions are nice in that in the way they are used for Bitcoin, it is very difficult to mine a block, but very easy to check the block. You could make an altcoin that uses "next x digits of Pi" as the PoW algorithm, but then every node will have to do the same calculations just to check the blocks.
3. How much space do the Folding/etc results take? Bitcoin blockchain is almost 500k blocks long, if the results took 1MB per block, it would be 500GB just for the PoW.
Real capitalism simply means the right to contract with who you want, when you want, for what you want, and to be secure in your person and property, and have the right to use your own property for whatever you wish and to do business with whoever you wish, so long as you do not initiate aggression against the person or property of someone else.
That fails on a large scale just like communism fails on a large scale
Real free market needs there to be a lot of sellers who offer similar goods, and it also requires everyone to be well-informed and acting rationally. In practice, there are huge costs to enter some markets (say, the CPU industry) just because of the technologies involved. That results in those markets being dominated by one or two companies (how many spinning hard drive manufacturers are there?). This then results in the buyer having little to no choice, especially if the few companies make some sort of agreement to fix prices etc.
Similar in the job market - the employer usually has more power than the employee, unless the employees form a union or something like that. Since there are fewer employers than employees, especially in some industries, the companies can make an agreement to, say, force the employees to work 16 hours per day without vacation days. Regulation is needed here too - I do not think that you would want to work in a factory the way people did 150 years ago, after all, the regulations came into effect after the businesses proved that they could not regulate themselves.
Another interesting bit of history I read - early railroad companies did not care about safety, since they saw maintenance as an expense that could be reduced. So what if a rusty boiler explodes or there is a train collision because the signalman was not supplied with fuel for signal lamps? It may be cheaper than maintaining all locomotives etc. Another example is the US railroad companies continuing to use older style couplers that were very dangerous even when a safer design was available. Why? Well, it was cheaper to hire new employees to replace the ones who were killed or maimed by the train than to replace all couplers.
We see similar things now with information security.
Passing and ignoring laws shows a tyrannical government. There was a saying in the USSR - "give us the person, we will find a law that he broke". You may be doing the smae things as everybody else, but if you piss of someone with a bit of power, they will get you, because some things everyone is doing are actually illegal, just not enforced. But they will make an exception for you and enforce the law.
It is good for you that you are an actual capitalist (somebody who earns a living from accumulated capital), but a lot of people are not capitalists - they earn money by working for a company.
Importing cheap labor lowers prices (hopefully) and helps the consumer in the short term, however, it hurts the economy in the long term. If the locals are unwilling to live in the low standard of living that the foreigners are accustomed to (10 people sharing a room etc), then it places a definite minimum on the salary they are willing to accept (it should at least pay for rent and food). If you want to lower the salary even further, then they just might stop working and live on welfare.
Then you will still be paying them (from your taxes), but they won't do anything useful to you. And they won't have enough money to buy your luxury goods.
So, I guess, true capitalists would like a country where vast majority of locals are on welfare, foreigners doing their jobs for small salaries and living in bad conditions, while the banks and corporations rake in profits by selling their stuff to other countries (since nobody in the USA can afford them).
Or, the company should specify what salary it is going to pay the employee. Then the limited number of visas issued to those who are willing to pay the highest salaries.
At some point it will become cheaper to hire a local or even pay a local to learn the skill and then hire him. If the skills required are truly rare, then it is only fair that the employee should get a huge salary.
I think that the big should be salary. If the employee you need has to have skills that are really rare (everybody with those skills in the USA are already employed), then you will be ready to pay him a lot.
Or maybe you will find a US citizen willing to work for less than what is needed to get the foreigner in.
I wouldn't know how easy or difficult it is to program, but when I drive, I assume that the other drivers may make a mistake (just like I sometimes make a mistake) and I use caution, even if I have the priority. Doubly so around big vehicles, like trucks and buses, since they may need more time to stop.
For example:
1.I am at an uncontrolled intersection, planning to turn right. I see a car from my left, it has its right turn signal on. That would mean that the other driver will turn to the street I am currently in and, as such, I can turn right with no problem. However, the other driver may have forgot to turn his turn signal off and is actually planning to go straight. So, I wait until I see the other car slowing down (ok, he actually is planning to turn), then I turn right and go on.
2. If I saw the truck reversing like in the TFA picture, I should either go around it (if possible) or stop at least a few meters away from it. A truck is big and it reverses slowly, so the situation should have been visible from far away.
3.When at an uncontrolled intersection, I assume all other cars have lost their brakes and will go straight and at constant velocity, then I try to figure out if I have the time to go and not get hit or I should wait. It does not matter if the street I am on is the primary. When I see the other cars slow down to let me trough, then I go.
Essentially, I do not want to get in an accident, even if that accident would not be my fault. Even if the other guy's insurance paid for straightening out my car, it still is extremely inconvenient as taking care of the paperwork takes time and then I would not have my car for the time it takes to repair the damage.
Also, maybe if the shuttle had a human driver, he would have been more careful near a semi truck and stopped further from it. I assume that the visibility from a big truck is quite poor and keep my distance.
Nail some 2x2's on the side and you can climb almost any wall, then you just need a knotted rope to get down.
If you climb over the wall, you may be detected easier (it probably is possible to detect when something is climbing the wall), the wall may have barbed wire on the top and, if caught, you will not be able to say that you somehow managed to get here by accident ("I thought this was still Mexico").
At least this is my opinion.
As for a Muslim US President - well, that day I would be really happy with the government of my country, even if it is corrupt. Islam does not seem to be compatible with the Western way of life. Also, a Muslim President would be another problem IMO - it would be very difficult to criticize his policies (especially if those policies were even partially based on his religion) without somebody calling you a racist. That is, you can criticize a Christian politician for banning abortions as much as you want, but criticizing a Muslim politician for the same policy would be more difficult.
I personally do not consider myself a racist, but I would consider myself "behavior"-ist or "culture"-ist. That is, I really do not care about the color of your skin (Muslim is not a race by the way), as long as you behave the same as everybody else in the area. If you behave differently, then I will consider the differences and decide whether I like you or not. However, if a bunch of people who look similar are behaving the same, but it is different from the norm, then I may have a problem.
For example, a man behaving like an asshole towards his wife or women in general - well, he's just an asshole. A big group of men behaving like that is a problem though. And if more members of that group want to immigrate, I will be against it, we have enough assholes already. Either stop being an asshole or - if that behavior is normal in your country - stay in your country.
In my opinion, immigrants and refugees pose several problems:
1. They demand welfare from the government. Money, that could be used to support our own poor people. Some immigrants have the audacity to demand more money than the locals get.
2. If they do not want to assimilate into our culture then there will always be some friction between us.
3. The immigrants are more likely to be common criminals.
4. The immigrants and their children are more likely to be terrorists (this seems to be exclusive to Muslims).
5. They might reduce the salaries of locals by offering to work cheaper (this applies more to more wealthy countries).
If you don't want to get tazed or shot, do not try to fight with a cop.
In my opinion, if you try to fight with a cop, you should get shot. Though it is a bit different in my country, where criminals are considered above all the other people.
I also do not think that Trump would bother with the ex-employee, because if he wanted to sue somebody, he would sue Twitter and then let Twitter figure out what to do with the ex-employee. Though I do not think that he will sue Twitter for this either.
However, Twitter may try to preempt a lawsuit by Trump with a lawsuit against the ex-employee in an effort to show that "yes, we did not authorize this, he/she did this on their own etc".
Yes, but if you are going to antagonize the government, then better make sure everything you do is squeaky clean, all papers are correct form, signed, all "i"s dotted and "t"s crossed. Because if you piss the government off enough, it will most likely find something to use against you.
Also, just because someone may or may not be a citizen, does not give us an excuse to use different rules. Nothing good comes of that path.
People living in a country illegally are breaking the law (obviously) and should be punished with jail time and then deportation.
The idea is to make it unprofitable to live in a country illegally. Living with a constant fear of being caught and deported is one way of achieving that. Declaring illegals to be outside the protection of the law may be another.
It is similar to how drunk drivers are punished in my country. If you drive drunk and get caught, you get punished, that's obvious. But you may also be punished for an accident that you did not cause. In an effort to reduce the number of drunk drivers, the government in my country passed a new law. If there is an accident involving more than one car and one of the drivers is drunk, then he is automatically guilty of the accident
That means, if you are stopped at a red light and somebody rear-ends you:
1. You are guilty of the accident and will pay a fine for causing an accident while drunk (higher fine than just the accident or just driving drunk), they may even take your license for a few months.
2. Your insurance company may refuse to pay so you may have to fix the other guy's car from with own money.
3. Your insurance payment will definitely be higher for a few years because of this.
And this is just so driving drunk would carry more risk than the usual increased risk of an accident and the risk of getting caught.
Building it myself is cheaper and more customizable.
I may want to use a rackmount case that I already have (or buy a new one), use the power supply, hard drive, sound card etc that I already have. This way I only pay for the components I need right now. When building a new main PC (that I also use for games), I usually keep the old video card for a while, until I buy a new one when it is clear that the old one is too slow. That way I do not have to spend as much money at once.
But it works. Slower, sure, but you can still copy the files etc.
It also kinda matches expectations - older PC (USB-1 or USB-2) - the new external hard drive works slower, I guess this is because the PC is old and slow. New external hard drive (blue connector) works faster when connected to a new PC compared to an older external hard drive - well, it's newer, so it's faster.
Why not have the power supply built into at least the larger models?
A device that connects to the wall outlet needs to pass safety inspection (with probably different requirements for different countries), which costs money. Using an external power supply is a way around this - the power supply design has to pass the inspection once, then you can use it for multiple laptop models, which are not "low voltage" devices, and, as such, do not need to pass the inspection.
Another way around this is to make the internal power supply completely separate with its own case etc (like it is on a desktop PC), but, I guess, that would take up too much space and cost the manufacturer money.
In addition, the laptop gets hot and the power supply gets hot, with an internal power supply, the laptop would need even more cooling.
But I agree with you that I will not buy a full-sized laptop without RJ45 port. Something like a palmtop PC can get away with a dongle, but not a full-sized laptop. I would also like a serial port, but nobody seems to be making laptops with them anymore.
The power supply of my laptop is rated for 120W, I kinda doubt that the USB-C connector will be able to supply that power without melting (or me having to dip it into contact cleaner every time I want to plug it to ensure ideal connection).
I do not really like the physical connector of USB-C. It may be good for a small device like a phone or a UMPC, but there should be a bigger version for a normal laptop and desktop. The small connector (similar size to micro-USB, but more pins) looks like it would wear out and become intermittent much faster than USB-A. Also, it looks like the connector (cable end) could become shorted, but have high enough resistance not to trip the SCP of the power supply resulting in a melted connector.
That is ignoring the fact that some USB-C devices will not work with some USB-C pors no matter what OS and driver you use, because the required hardware protocols are not implemented.
This works, for a while. Joe can buy a cheaper TV (though when his salary is reduced, he may no longer afford a higher quality TV) or a car, but when he needs a service (lawyer, doctor, insurance, taxi, internet etc) or locally produced things (electricity, water, some food) he has to pay US prices. As a result, he now has less money even though buying a cheaper TV or car saved him some money once.
Suppose Joe Sixpack buys cheap foreign solar panels. It really doesn't matter if the money for the panels went overseas, because Joe's going to spend the money he's saving on his electricity bill on other stuff right here in the US.
Or, he is going to buy a new TV, made not in the US, or a new car, made by US company, but not in the US, or a new cellphone, made by US company, but not in the US etc.
After a while, his emplyer calls him and tells him that the company (which made things in the US) is failing and all the manufacturing jobs are going to China, so Joe now has four options:
1. Become unemplyed.
2. continue doing hisjob, but for the same salary as he Chinese workers get.
3. Learn Chinese and move to China, where he would work for the Chinese salary, but at least his living expenses will be lower.
4. Become an investor or CEO of a company, assuming he has a few tens or hundreds of millions stashed away somewhere.
They find it a huge load off to not have to be constantly monitoring every bit about you drive
But now you have to constantly monitor every bit about how the AI drives. Especially since you may have to take control in less than a second, because you will always recognize the problem later than normal, since you expect the AI to take care of it and only notice when the AI doesn't do that in a normal fashion ("Hmm, there is a huge hole in the road, the AI is going to stop... Oh shit!! The AI did not start braking at the normal distance now I have to brake or swerve into a less deep ditch.").
Part of the irony of EAP is that as they improve it, it may actually lead to more accidents.
I completely agree. If anyone doubts it, do a simple experiment: there are websites where you can measure your reaction time. Usually you have to wait for a signal and then click a button as quickly as possible. Try to do that with the wait time before the signal set to about 10 seconds, and then set it to an hour. I am sure that after staring at the screen for an hour you will react slower than waiting for 10 seconds.
OTOH, manual driving is more like waiting for a second or even playing a FPS game - you are engaged all the time, so the reaction time is the fastest.
Sure you'll watch the road like a hawk for the first few weeks...
This raises a question - if I have to pay as much or more attention to the road as if I am driving the car manually, then why would I need this feature? At least driving the car manually keeps me alert since I have to respond often instead of once every two hours.
The problem is that the current "autopilot" is pretty much like being a driving instructor.
The student (or in this case, autopilot) drives, but you have to be always looking out for his mistakes and prepared to take control in an instant.
Also, in this case the "student" is high or something because, while he usually does not do the mistakes other students do (forgetting a turn signal, missing a red traffic signal) he ma, once in a while, not notice a huge 18-wheeler just in front of him.
I'm sorry, the lightbulb on my time machine burned out, indicating a wrong year, let's try that again:
"I do not want to spend time choosing the music, opening apps, going through menus, searching for folders and playlists, waiting for Youtube to load, searching for the next song on Youtube, connecting my cellphone etc."
Honestly though I find tapes and MDs to be more convenient in addition to the fact that I already have a lot of tapes with the music I like. I think I could get the same songs on digital (without spending weeks or months recording from the tapes), then make "virtual tapes" - playlists, record all to a USB drive or a SD card and play that on a compatible player or a phone, selecting the playlist I want, but that seems just too much effort, when I can just grab a tape or a minidisc and a player. Recording from a CD/record I just bought (or MP3/flac/wav I just downloaded) to either a tape or MD is not that inconvenient compared to recording from the tapes to a PC format.
Recording music from a record or other analog source is easier with a tape, recording from a PC is easier with a MD, or at least faster. But both tapes and MDs have advantages and disadvantages for me compared to each other, so I use them both depending on circumstance.