Yes, although they might have to tilt their head to get the polarization of their sunglasses oriented correctly in relation to the polarization of the screen.
Sure, you can innovate all you want. But if you try to make a living by selling those innovations and run into someone who bought a stupidly obvious patent that should never have been granted, prepare to be bankrupted by the legal system that you suggested we simply ignore since we're all criminals anyway.
And don't think that being in another country will protect you. Every developed country on the planet has a patent system. It won't necessarily be an American who rips you a new one.
And saying that "the US doesn't want new products manufactured or sold here" is idiotic. A company that applies for a patent here wants to prevent competition, but they damned want their own products to be sold here (and manufactured, too, if it's cost-effective).
You shouldn't ignore the stupidity of the patent system any more than we should ignore a burglar who only targets the opposite of your gender. Sure, you may not be directly effected directly, but it affects society.
Patent trolls stifle innovation, make the development of new products more expensive and have a negative effect on us all, even if it's only an indirect effect.
You can get enough accuracy for buying paint and fence length by counting your steps.
You have to walk from one end of the measurement to the other whether you're counting steps or just putting the phones in place, but you don't have to walk back to the starting point to pick up a phone, however, so the entire process is easier and faster if you just count steps.
Ahahaha... you have clearly never tried to play one of the realistic shuttle flight sims.
I have. It's fucking frustrating and difficult as hell even with a pause button and manual to refer to. There's a hell of a lot more to it than pushing a button once in a while.
> If however, you insist that no precaution must be omitted to keep astronauts safe, then the cost rises - perhaps prohibitively.
I never insisted anything of the sort. You're creating straw man arguments.
We've had enough deaths that only an idiot would think that the safety measures in place are overprotective. Fewer safety measures would almost certainly result in more deaths, failed missions and billions of dollars wasted which the theoretical cost-savings of reduced safety measures would almost certainly not make up for.
> Why is it desired socially to absolutely minimise risk beyond the minimisation of operating cost including life insurance and training for astronauts, but not fishermen?
Can you prove that we're minimizing risk beyond minimization of operating cost? Of course not. You're making more straw man arguments.
The cost of a single mission failure can easily be over half a billion dollars. You'd have to lose several hundred fishing trawlers (a used one goes for 1-2 million from what I can tell) and dozens of fishermen (assuming each one has a million dollar life insurance policy) to even begin to match the cost of just one of the shuttle failures.
So... why shouldn't we value an astronaut more than a fisherman? Astronauts are more expensive and more difficult for a society to produce than fishermen and the loss of a space craft and crew represents a far greater loss than the loss of a fishing boat and crew.
The Soviets never produced anything as capable as the space shuttle. They tried with the Buran, but it never amounted to much.
The only reason we buy Soyuz launches is that we decided to end the shuttle program, which was done for reasons which are far too complicated and not relevant to this discussion.
Nearly anyone can learn how to work on a fishing boat in less than a week. Learning to pilot a spacecraft is a lot more complicated and few people would take the time and put forth the effort required to develop the necessary skills. We, as a society, value people with rare skills because it's hard to find replacements for those people when needed.
Aside from that, there's the financial aspect of it: If a single trip on a fishing trawler cost half a billion dollars and you had to hire crew and train them for years for the mission, you can bet your mom's ass that there would be a lot more safety precautions taken to ensure that the trip was a success.
I was counting NASA's deaths... 7 in each shuttle, 3 in Apollo -= 17.
I didn't include Russia's space program deaths because, having read some of the history of their space program, I feel confident in saying that risk aversion wasn't holding them back.
The only reason that 5% of those fishermen die is that they're willing to put their lives in that sort of jeopardy in exchange for the money that they might make. For people with no real skills beyond the ability to perform manual labor, a job on a fishing trawler can be very lucrative because it usually pays a hell of a lot more than minimum wage. If nobody was willing to take the risks, there would be more effort put towards safety...or the boat fishing industry would collapse and we'd only have farmed fish and all the fishermen could concentrate on becoming astronauts.
That aside, they can be astronauts if they want. All they have to do is apply and be accepted, but why would we spend millions of dollars to send fishermen somewhere where they have no useful skills beyond a tolerance for seasickness?
Astronauts are more valuable in space because of the skills they've spent a lifetime developing.
You clearly don't understand how dangerous it is to put someone in space, even with every precaution we can think of. Maybe you've forgotten the 17 deaths that have occurred so far?
Going to space isn't like assaulting Omaha beach. Throwing more cannon fodder out in unsafe vehicles that are likely to fail will not overcome or wear down space and allow later people to make it through.
That's the same rationale that gave us trickle down theory, tax cuts for the wealthy, middle class incomes falling rather than rising and a massive increase in income disparity.
It may sound nice on paper, but reality doesn't work that way.
> I'm reminded of the main title sequence for that Babylon 5 spinoff "Excalibur", where the Technomage Galen intones, "Whom do you trust? Whom do you serve?"
Wow... you mangled the quote and added bad grammar.
> You may have lost money on it, but somebody gained.
Absolutely false.
If I bought $1000 worth of Bitcoins, then changed my mind about having them and sold them to TechLA, I would have my original $1000. When the value crashed by 90%, TechLA's Bitcoins suddenly became worth $100. Nobody gained $900 in that exchange.
The only way someone else gains is if TechLA sells those Bitcoins at $100 and their value rebounds to $1000. That has not happened.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, although they might have to tilt their head to get the polarization of their sunglasses oriented correctly in relation to the polarization of the screen.
> they *have* to use old health records for printer paper in schools. There's nothing else to use.
It's a crazy idea, but I think they could probably buy printer paper and use that.
Sure, you can innovate all you want. But if you try to make a living by selling those innovations and run into someone who bought a stupidly obvious patent that should never have been granted, prepare to be bankrupted by the legal system that you suggested we simply ignore since we're all criminals anyway.
And don't think that being in another country will protect you. Every developed country on the planet has a patent system. It won't necessarily be an American who rips you a new one.
And saying that "the US doesn't want new products manufactured or sold here" is idiotic. A company that applies for a patent here wants to prevent competition, but they damned want their own products to be sold here (and manufactured, too, if it's cost-effective).
You shouldn't ignore the stupidity of the patent system any more than we should ignore a burglar who only targets the opposite of your gender. Sure, you may not be directly effected directly, but it affects society.
Patent trolls stifle innovation, make the development of new products more expensive and have a negative effect on us all, even if it's only an indirect effect.
The prostitute that laughed at you and said "that's not even four inches" doesn't count.
You can get enough accuracy for buying paint and fence length by counting your steps.
You have to walk from one end of the measurement to the other whether you're counting steps or just putting the phones in place, but you don't have to walk back to the starting point to pick up a phone, however, so the entire process is easier and faster if you just count steps.
Ahahaha... you have clearly never tried to play one of the realistic shuttle flight sims.
I have. It's fucking frustrating and difficult as hell even with a pause button and manual to refer to. There's a hell of a lot more to it than pushing a button once in a while.
> If however, you insist that no precaution must be omitted to keep astronauts safe, then the cost rises - perhaps prohibitively.
I never insisted anything of the sort. You're creating straw man arguments.
We've had enough deaths that only an idiot would think that the safety measures in place are overprotective. Fewer safety measures would almost certainly result in more deaths, failed missions and billions of dollars wasted which the theoretical cost-savings of reduced safety measures would almost certainly not make up for.
> Why is it desired socially to absolutely minimise risk beyond the minimisation of operating cost including life insurance and training for astronauts, but not fishermen?
Can you prove that we're minimizing risk beyond minimization of operating cost? Of course not. You're making more straw man arguments.
The cost of a single mission failure can easily be over half a billion dollars. You'd have to lose several hundred fishing trawlers (a used one goes for 1-2 million from what I can tell) and dozens of fishermen (assuming each one has a million dollar life insurance policy) to even begin to match the cost of just one of the shuttle failures.
So... why shouldn't we value an astronaut more than a fisherman? Astronauts are more expensive and more difficult for a society to produce than fishermen and the loss of a space craft and crew represents a far greater loss than the loss of a fishing boat and crew.
The Soviets never produced anything as capable as the space shuttle. They tried with the Buran, but it never amounted to much.
The only reason we buy Soyuz launches is that we decided to end the shuttle program, which was done for reasons which are far too complicated and not relevant to this discussion.
Nearly anyone can learn how to work on a fishing boat in less than a week. Learning to pilot a spacecraft is a lot more complicated and few people would take the time and put forth the effort required to develop the necessary skills. We, as a society, value people with rare skills because it's hard to find replacements for those people when needed.
Aside from that, there's the financial aspect of it: If a single trip on a fishing trawler cost half a billion dollars and you had to hire crew and train them for years for the mission, you can bet your mom's ass that there would be a lot more safety precautions taken to ensure that the trip was a success.
I was counting NASA's deaths... 7 in each shuttle, 3 in Apollo -= 17.
I didn't include Russia's space program deaths because, having read some of the history of their space program, I feel confident in saying that risk aversion wasn't holding them back.
The only reason that 5% of those fishermen die is that they're willing to put their lives in that sort of jeopardy in exchange for the money that they might make. For people with no real skills beyond the ability to perform manual labor, a job on a fishing trawler can be very lucrative because it usually pays a hell of a lot more than minimum wage. If nobody was willing to take the risks, there would be more effort put towards safety ...or the boat fishing industry would collapse and we'd only have farmed fish and all the fishermen could concentrate on becoming astronauts.
That aside, they can be astronauts if they want. All they have to do is apply and be accepted, but why would we spend millions of dollars to send fishermen somewhere where they have no useful skills beyond a tolerance for seasickness?
Astronauts are more valuable in space because of the skills they've spent a lifetime developing.
You clearly don't understand how dangerous it is to put someone in space, even with every precaution we can think of. Maybe you've forgotten the 17 deaths that have occurred so far?
Going to space isn't like assaulting Omaha beach. Throwing more cannon fodder out in unsafe vehicles that are likely to fail will not overcome or wear down space and allow later people to make it through.
Are you kidding? Your house is clearly under some sort of magic spell that prevents it from being destroyed!!
Which explains the behavior of both military during operations and programmers during crunch time.
Well spoken. I kinda wish my comment hadn't been meant as a joke, because that would have been a damned good reply if it had been serious.
And it's people like you, with the foul language and instant rage over what is obviously a joke comment that give geeks in general a bad name.
Grow up.
And people still watch Jersey Shore, despite the fact that there are better things they could watch. We pity them too.
There's your problem. If you lived under a rock (or in your parent's basement), you could spend your entire life online and you'd know these things.
I'll bet your Betamax tapes look better than everyone else's VHS, too.
That's the same rationale that gave us trickle down theory, tax cuts for the wealthy, middle class incomes falling rather than rising and a massive increase in income disparity.
It may sound nice on paper, but reality doesn't work that way.
Quotes are supposed to be accurate. Half-remembered paraphrased revisions shouldn't be presented as quotes.
> I'm reminded of the main title sequence for that Babylon 5 spinoff "Excalibur", where the Technomage Galen intones, "Whom do you trust? Whom do you serve?"
Wow... you mangled the quote and added bad grammar.
"Who do you serve and who do you trust?"
Choosing to use who and whom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnover
Must be some local slang usage. Rip-off appears to be one of the few things it doesn't mean to the general public.
> You may have lost money on it, but somebody gained.
Absolutely false.
If I bought $1000 worth of Bitcoins, then changed my mind about having them and sold them to TechLA, I would have my original $1000. When the value crashed by 90%, TechLA's Bitcoins suddenly became worth $100. Nobody gained $900 in that exchange.
The only way someone else gains is if TechLA sells those Bitcoins at $100 and their value rebounds to $1000. That has not happened.