Normal weapons, even with fancy training, couldn't ever pose a large threat to the government.
Tell it the king we overthrew in in the late 1700s.
The late 1700's king did not have tanks and bazookas. Both sides had artillery for most of the American War of Independence - the Americans by capturing it such as by the Knox Expedition. The only significant weaponry where the British had the advantage in was in ships.
The death of WinXP support should be a huge boon to the ReactOS project..
Looks like it needs a huge boon, being still only in alpha. I don't think the South Korean Government will be going that way, nor many others. I would put ReactOS in a similar category to the projects to maintain OS/2 (eg eComStation) and DOS (eg FreeDOS), very small niches.
I followed the first link in TFA ("Korea IT News") to find out, and even that did not tell me. Then I noticed a reference to "the capital city of Seoul" in the last line, but it was not clear that it did not relate to a different story. Even assuming Seoul was the capital concerned, I confess that I could not remember whether it was North or the South (not being American, I am not as close to the subject) so I went to Wikipedia and, incredibly, even that does not tell you.
They're saying after you've been accused x times, you go to jail. I think they missed a few steps.
And for that reason alone, there is absolutely no chance this is going anywhere.
I don't know where the idea came from in this discussion that "infringers" would go to jail without a trial. Citation for that? I believe that what is meant is after three warnings you would be considered for prosecution. The prosecution if successful might lead to imprisonment.
I would like to see would be to forbid the company from doing business for a time equivalent of what the prison sentence would be.
That won't work. In the UK companies that have gone bankrupt often just change their name and carry on.
My wife did the finances of a small company. Another company went bankrupt owning her company £1000's. A few weeks later she got a phone call from its owner asking for even more goods on credit. He had restarted the company as "Bloggs Widgets" instead of "Bloggs Gadgets". Same premises, same phone number, same people, making the same stuff. He insisted it was a different company though.
Some companies have two or more names registered already, and they switch names at the drop of a hat if it suits them. Several small companies my wife has worked for have had at least two legally separate entities that they could switch between if it suited them
But the knowledge that it existed did come from the commercial ad (at least you described it that way) so the commercial ad didn't influence you.
You seem to contradict yourself there; perhaps a typo. I think you are saying that eg I would not be aware of eg Canon cameras if they did not advertise. Anyway, not true.
I am aware that cameras exist, for one thing my father had one.
If I want to buy a camera, Canon's out-of-context adverts will have nothing to do with it. I will look at camera review websites to find what exists and what are the recommended ones (and I know how to recognise astro-turfing). I will also look at the websites of Canon, Nikon, Samsung, Pentax, Fuji etc and also of camera shops - all I can find - (ie their own contextual advertising) to see thier specs and prices. I will look at camera shop displays. I will also listen to what any friends have to say about their cameras - but just because they condemn eg for not having a little voice telling them what to do will not mean that I necessarily condemn it too. Everthing needs to be weighed up.
Don't try to tell me what influences me and what doesn't.
I would really encourage you to take an introduction to marketing class... [The advertisers] are trying to target not just the conscious part of people's mind, but also the SUBconscious part
We know that, but as you seem to concede yourself, why assume this sub-conscious influence is always positive? When watching a TV drama and it keeps being interrupted by the same bunch of time-wasting ads, I start to get angry with the brands like a laboratory rat reacting to electric shocks. I have no doubt that is in my sub-conscious as well as my conscious level. One thing is certain, I am never going on a Viking River Cruise after having their TV ads rammed down my throat ad nauseum.
most people... don't waste energy trying to extract some form of revenge in such a useless manner
I also react negatively to out-of-context adverts. It isn't "revenge". If I see a company obviously spending a lot on ads i consider that less of my money will be going into quality. For example I recently bought a pressure washer and deliberately avoided Karcher because their ads are everywhere - even on the back of my heavily used road atlas in case I forget. Knowing how much adverts cost, so I am guessing that at least half of what a Karcher washer costs is going on its adverts.
Other ads are just so damn silly that I don't want to be associated with the product - especially some beer and lager adverts tend to show a complete and utter wanker as the "hero", typically on the theme that everything in his life goes wrong (because he is an idiot) but he gets consolation by drinking a pint of their brand. Sorry, I don't identify with them, and don't want to either.
Wow, don't know where to start here - someone who has worked for dating sites too.
> Got about 25% replies
Bullshit.
I believe you are thinking of dating websites. I was clear I was talking about my experience on letter-based dating clubs, FWIW. Maybe some difference there.
You're not going to find 25% of a random sampling of women that are interested in men and go to the trouble to reply... As OkCupid proved only 20% of women find men on onine dating sites attractive. The odds.... are not 125% like you claim. That's impossible.
It was not a random sample of women. They were women who by joining the scheme had expressed a wish to meet a guy, and I mostly wrote to ones sounding suitable in terms of age, attitude, culture etc. I would not have written to one eg who said they only wanted a vegetarian guy, or a guy over 6ft tall, which I am not. And presumably, women who don't find men on on-line dating sites attractive don't join on-line dating sites, so they do not enter the equation or your percentages at all.
I've contacted 60,000 women over the years, and I've only met one in person. That's a 0.00167% success rate.
..and I thought my luck was bad! I know several couples in my circle who met by online dating and my circle is not a large one. They certainly did not contact 60,000 . I am in the UK, if that makes a difference.
.. you claim a second date 40% of the time... unlikely. Several surveys I've seen put that number at 5% so you're claiming to be eight times more effective than the average guy.
Don't forget that by the second date we had already been through quite a filtration process - typically an exchange of 3 or 4 letters and photos on top of the basic factual details in our listings. Don't think the average guy does that.
> went steady with 1%
So your claim is that half of the time you can get a second date that you have a long term relationship?
No, I did not claim that. A LTR means living like in marriage, usually co-habiting and with routine sex. I only claimed I "went steady". Does the term no longer exist? It means a friendship such that neither of us were looking for a relationship elsewhere at the time, were seeing each other only once or twice a week, and were not necessarily having sex together yet.
Strange attitude that only about 20% of women find men on onine dating sites attractive. I have come across many things thay make people unattractive - bad breath, bad complexion, bad teeth, bad attitude, poor figure, limp personality.... but being a member of a dating club ??? WTF has that got to do with attractiveness? Is there an assumption that you must be unattractive to be in a dating club? Not what I found, the girls I met had joined out of circumstances - like me, for one reason or another, they never met anyone of the opposite sex of similar age and unattached. Some I met were extremely attractive, although I met some ugly ones too; typical cross-section really.
Re:Scammers always looking for a target
on
Make a Date With Fraud
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Anyway in the process of using dating sites for 3 years, I would only get about a 1/70 ratio of people I message.
Is that 1 in 70 reply, 1 in 70 you meet, or 1 in 70 you get to do whatever?
I was in a dating club (pre-internet - it was letter based). Got about 25% replies, met about 5%, further dates with about 2%, went steady (as it was called, not the same as a LTR) with 1%, married 0.2%.
Someone said you should have been more selective in who to contact. I started that way, looking for certain personalities, but got very few replies; then I just wrote to all that were in a 5 year age bracket and not taller than me (there were no photos in that club). Suprisingly, I got on very well with girls who were quite opposite to me - dimmer and more outgoing, including an ex- Bunny Girl (not as exciting as you might think). FWIW I was mentally stable, not nerdy, quite well off, and not all that bad looking - which is assumed to be what girls look for, but it cetainly isn't, not these days anyway.
one of the reasons for me stopping to use dating sites is that if God has someone for me, he'll hook me up
I never met any girl outside of dating clubs, and by "met" I mean to have a social conversation > 10 seconds. It remains a mystery to me how people meet each other any other way.
Dating sites, where you go when you want to be judged by your selfies. Looking to meet someone with similar interests? Look elsewhere, loser.
Here we go : cue posts saying "My mother told me never to trust anyone I meet on a dating website".
Here's some more helpful advice:-
Never trust anyone you meet in a bar
Never trust anyone you meet in a theatre
Never trust anyone you meet at a party
Never trust anyone you meet in the street
Never trust anyone you meet on holiday
Never trust anyone you meet if arraged by a friend
Never trust anyone unless you already knew them before you were born
Perhaps you would like to advise us where this "elsewhere" is exactly, I never found it. Do you know, when you actually meet someone (whether through internet dating or "elsewhere") you get to see what they actually look like anyway? If they look like Jo Brand (and that's not your thing), or they ask for money (and that's not your thing either) you walk away.
Solution? Give 'em a film camera. You can get a Pentax K1000 for $50 these days, with 1 50mm lens (no zooming!).
Pentax K1000 ? Why not an MX? I am a Pentax fan and never understood the popularity of the K1000 - OK it was because it was recommended by every art course over a 20 year period, but I never understood that either.
The K1000 was out-of date when introduced. Pentax had not long tooled up for the K series (K2, KM, KX) when the fashion suddenly changed to smaller cameras. So they came out with the smaller M series (including the professional all-manual MX). But what now to do with the K series production line? And indeed parts (eg the metering) left over from the even older Spotmatic SP1000? Answer - they brought out the brutally spartan K1000 at a bargain price - at first. People called it a "family" camera - but surely a family camera needs a self-timer! At one point it was being sold [by Jessops] alongside the superb little MX at a higher price, yet people still bought it!
Swapping the engine makes working on cars ridiculous.
I think you misunderstood what I meant - I meant that the makers could offer an engine swap that would be designed to go (nearly) straight in. Diesel locos' are typically re-engined at least once in their life. I don't mean an exact replacement (that happens too) but replacement by a more modern design of engine. The engine maker, the loco maker and the railway company talk to each other and come up with engine mountings and pipe connections etc such that each loco can have its swap carried out in a few hours at the depot and is back on the line the next day.
Most people will go for a car that lasts 6 years and costs $20k over a car that lasts 20 years and costs $120k
A car to last 20 years should not cost 6 times as much as, or even 20% more than, one that lasts 6 years, because parts could and should be made more easily replacable, easily extending its life. When most people think that a car is worn out, or too rusty, the percentage loss of material by wear or rust is orders of magnitude less than the total. Things such as bearings and oil seals could and should be made far easier and cheaper to replace than they are.
I am an engineer who has worked on the repair of cars, buses, ships and trains, and it is ridiculous how difficult it is to replace parts and generally maintain cars compared with those other three, especially when you take the greater size of the others into consideration. Some of those others (and aircraft too I understand) are going strong even after 50 years, not just 20. A quantum leap in engine technology? - just swap the engine. It is also shocking how crappy is the quality on cars compared with those others. Incidentally, I run a car that is 20 years old with nearly a third of a million miles on it.
It is the whims of fashion that dictates the short lives of cars.
Or perhaps in the spirit of Alfred Nobel, he's merely seeking a better mention in history.
There is no perhaps about it. He is following a predictable pattern also followed by eg Nobel, Carnegie and Rockefeller. Nobel seems to have succeded - in his time he had been described as "The Merchant of Death". I don't think Gates will succeed though - his fouling of electronic document formats will see to that.
Anyway, WTF else does anyone do with such money that it would be physically impossible to "enjoy" it all themselves? He could buy a new car about every 20 seconds for the rest of his life (do the math) but would not have time to get in and out of each one, let alone drive it. I don't consider myself a generous person , but if I had that money I would be giving it to charity (but not Gate's ones).
Your little list can be easily trumped by Thomas Edison alone...
The context was human life and health. Edison was in the world of science and technology. In any case it was Edison's unsung underlings who made most of the advances. For other science examples, do you seriously think that the likes of Newton, Bacon, Galileo and Einstein were motivated by profit?
We need to distinguish between profit and salary. Many scientists and medical pioneers want a comfortable, or at least a livable, salary if only so that they can concentrate on what they like doing. Newton had his allowance as a Cambridge professor, and was later rewarded by the post of Master of the Royal Mint. But he did not make his discoveries so that he could become Master of the Mint. In fact he lived like a monk. Francis Bacon, as Lord Chancellor of England, was already a very wealthy man yet took an interest in science as a hobby, such that he was the founder of the modern scientific method. Bacon certainly did not look or expect any profit from his scienctific work - he did not need it.
Microsoft...... practically made the computing industry,
When were you born? I owned a computer (an Amstrad) in 1983. I had one (a PDP-11) in my office at work from 1977. I first used one (called Titan) remotely in 1966.
That's some claim - probably refers to it's small turning circle (why would I care?). But that incredible fork angle (looks about 45 deg) means that the front end will be falling as you steer from straight-ahead (assuming he has given the front wheel some caster) which means a gravitational tendency to steer away from the straight ahead, made worse by the relatively low gyroscopic stability of small wheels. Conventional fork geometry evolved the way it is for good reason, but I guess he had to compromise to get the rider's positions to where they are.
Still, as I guess these things will never get further than the seaside promenade or the pavement (US sidewalk) I suppose it does not matter
Because I'm from Africa, you lie and claim I don't understand money. Fuck you and your racist kind. I not only understand money, but I make six figures in the Detroit area.... because I'm black... Fuck you Republicans.. [blah blah blah]
Wow, what a post! It's made my day.
I didn't see any mention of "black", "Africa" or "Republican" in the GP, he was talking about subsistence farmers and clearly you are not one. OTOH, you are close to projecting yourself as another stereotype, one I won't describe here but not a very nice one.
Anyway, the GP saying that subsistence farmers don't understand money is nonsense. We get too much of earnest do-good romantic hype giving the impression that everyone in Africa lives in a straw hut, trades with hippo teeth, and wears loincloths. It's bullshit.
BMW had that. They even had a navigation system that only talked to you and nobody liked it. Every single person wanted a moving map display.
I was obviously misssed in that survey as I don't drive a BMW.
However, I was an early adopter of satnavs and from the first I have gone by the voice and never looked at them (they are face down on a shelf), except when programming before a journey. I regard a satnav as the equivalent of ny 12 yo son giving directions while he reads the map. Then when other people started using satnavs I was horrified to see them being positioned to be read while driving. I thought it must be illegal or would surely soon be banned. It still makes my hair stand on end to think of drivers peering at a satnav map while driving. Using a mobile phone must be far safer, yet that is banned.
The summary states that the goal of this is to make flying accessible to more people. Does that mean the research is being done so quadriplegics can still pilot a plane or is it for John Q. Public?
It is supposed to be for the quadriplegics. By throwing that into the hype they hope to get the funding. It's bollocks; what prevents flying being "accessible" (the funding trigger word) is the cost of it. Here in the UK I don't suppose more than one person in 10,000 could afford their own plane, and the concept of owning or hiring a plane does not even ever enter most people's minds. I just once knew someone who took a few flying lessons.
Furthermore, for reasons never explained, disabled people are assumed to be poor (they get significant discounts and allowances for some things) so it might equally well be assumed that they are the least likely people to afford planes (unless the taxpayer is going to give them free rides). All this assumes that we want the flying of planes to be more accessible. Do we? Where I live there are often what seem to be learners doing circles above in light aircraft for half an hour at a time, chucking out noise and CO2 apparently just for the thrill of it. I wish they'd fuck off.
Is this a real problem to be solved or is it merely a solution looking for a problem?
If you're afraid of getting hit by automated cars, it's by definition irrelevant whether there's a kid in them or not
The OP's case was that his kid is safer going on a journey (to the sweetshop?) in an automated car than on his bike. I am saying that while it may be safer for the kid, it is not safer for anyone his vehicle hits.
I'd think that improper maintenance would be a thing of the past with autonomous vehicles. The car would simply refuse to operate if it was overdue for maintenance, and it could go drive itself for repairs...... when... 99/100 of [accidents] are attributable to poor maintenance, we'll suddenly see pressure to fix that problem.
You think the car driving itself for repairs (refusing to be satisfied with DiY work) would solve the problem? As I mentioned in a previous post, I was once a mechanic in a dealers - I would say middle-market. What I saw done by other mechanics (teenagers, some of them) would make your hair stand on end and burst the bubble of your argument.
I have had a main dealer work on my car just twice in its 15 year life - for essential recalls. Believe me, I took everything they did apart and reassembled afterwards to check their work. On one occasion it was not OK - they had done the wheel nuts up with a 6ft scaffold pole I reckon because that is what it took me to undo them. I needed to replace some of the wheel nuts as they had damaged them with the excessive force.
Slashdot Mirror
Normal weapons, even with fancy training, couldn't ever pose a large threat to the government.
Tell it the king we overthrew in in the late 1700s.
The late 1700's king did not have tanks and bazookas. Both sides had artillery for most of the American War of Independence - the Americans by capturing it such as by the Knox Expedition. The only significant weaponry where the British had the advantage in was in ships.
The death of WinXP support should be a huge boon to the ReactOS project. .
Looks like it needs a huge boon, being still only in alpha. I don't think the South Korean Government will be going that way, nor many others. I would put ReactOS in a similar category to the projects to maintain OS/2 (eg eComStation) and DOS (eg FreeDOS), very small niches.
No.
I followed the first link in TFA ("Korea IT News") to find out, and even that did not tell me. Then I noticed a reference to "the capital city of Seoul" in the last line, but it was not clear that it did not relate to a different story. Even assuming Seoul was the capital concerned, I confess that I could not remember whether it was North or the South (not being American, I am not as close to the subject) so I went to Wikipedia and, incredibly, even that does not tell you.
They're saying after you've been accused x times, you go to jail. I think they missed a few steps.
And for that reason alone, there is absolutely no chance this is going anywhere.
I don't know where the idea came from in this discussion that "infringers" would go to jail without a trial. Citation for that? I believe that what is meant is after three warnings you would be considered for prosecution. The prosecution if successful might lead to imprisonment.
I would like to see would be to forbid the company from doing business for a time equivalent of what the prison sentence would be.
That won't work. In the UK companies that have gone bankrupt often just change their name and carry on.
My wife did the finances of a small company. Another company went bankrupt owning her company £1000's. A few weeks later she got a phone call from its owner asking for even more goods on credit. He had restarted the company as "Bloggs Widgets" instead of "Bloggs Gadgets". Same premises, same phone number, same people, making the same stuff. He insisted it was a different company though.
Some companies have two or more names registered already, and they switch names at the drop of a hat if it suits them. Several small companies my wife has worked for have had at least two legally separate entities that they could switch between if it suited them
But the knowledge that it existed did come from the commercial ad (at least you described it that way) so the commercial ad didn't influence you.
You seem to contradict yourself there; perhaps a typo. I think you are saying that eg I would not be aware of eg Canon cameras if they did not advertise. Anyway, not true.
I am aware that cameras exist, for one thing my father had one.
If I want to buy a camera, Canon's out-of-context adverts will have nothing to do with it. I will look at camera review websites to find what exists and what are the recommended ones (and I know how to recognise astro-turfing). I will also look at the websites of Canon, Nikon, Samsung, Pentax, Fuji etc and also of camera shops - all I can find - (ie their own contextual advertising) to see thier specs and prices. I will look at camera shop displays. I will also listen to what any friends have to say about their cameras - but just because they condemn eg for not having a little voice telling them what to do will not mean that I necessarily condemn it too. Everthing needs to be weighed up.
Don't try to tell me what influences me and what doesn't.
I would really encourage you to take an introduction to marketing class... [The advertisers] are trying to target not just the conscious part of people's mind, but also the SUBconscious part
We know that, but as you seem to concede yourself, why assume this sub-conscious influence is always positive? When watching a TV drama and it keeps being interrupted by the same bunch of time-wasting ads, I start to get angry with the brands like a laboratory rat reacting to electric shocks. I have no doubt that is in my sub-conscious as well as my conscious level. One thing is certain, I am never going on a Viking River Cruise after having their TV ads rammed down my throat ad nauseum.
most people ... don't waste energy trying to extract some form of revenge in such a useless manner
I also react negatively to out-of-context adverts. It isn't "revenge". If I see a company obviously spending a lot on ads i consider that less of my money will be going into quality. For example I recently bought a pressure washer and deliberately avoided Karcher because their ads are everywhere - even on the back of my heavily used road atlas in case I forget. Knowing how much adverts cost, so I am guessing that at least half of what a Karcher washer costs is going on its adverts.
Other ads are just so damn silly that I don't want to be associated with the product - especially some beer and lager adverts tend to show a complete and utter wanker as the "hero", typically on the theme that everything in his life goes wrong (because he is an idiot) but he gets consolation by drinking a pint of their brand. Sorry, I don't identify with them, and don't want to either.
> Got about 25% replies
Bullshit.
I believe you are thinking of dating websites. I was clear I was talking about my experience on letter-based dating clubs, FWIW. Maybe some difference there.
You're not going to find 25% of a random sampling of women that are interested in men and go to the trouble to reply... As OkCupid proved only 20% of women find men on onine dating sites attractive. The odds .... are not 125% like you claim. That's impossible.
It was not a random sample of women. They were women who by joining the scheme had expressed a wish to meet a guy, and I mostly wrote to ones sounding suitable in terms of age, attitude, culture etc. I would not have written to one eg who said they only wanted a vegetarian guy, or a guy over 6ft tall, which I am not. And presumably, women who don't find men on on-line dating sites attractive don't join on-line dating sites, so they do not enter the equation or your percentages at all.
I've contacted 60,000 women over the years, and I've only met one in person. That's a 0.00167% success rate.
.. you claim a second date 40% of the time ... unlikely. Several surveys I've seen put that number at 5% so you're claiming to be eight times more effective than the average guy.
Don't forget that by the second date we had already been through quite a filtration process - typically an exchange of 3 or 4 letters and photos on top of the basic factual details in our listings. Don't think the average guy does that.
> went steady with 1%
So your claim is that half of the time you can get a second date that you have a long term relationship?
No, I did not claim that. A LTR means living like in marriage, usually co-habiting and with routine sex. I only claimed I "went steady". Does the term no longer exist? It means a friendship such that neither of us were looking for a relationship elsewhere at the time, were seeing each other only once or twice a week, and were not necessarily having sex together yet.
.... but being a member of a dating club ??? WTF has that got to do with attractiveness? Is there an assumption that you must be unattractive to be in a dating club? Not what I found, the girls I met had joined out of circumstances - like me, for one reason or another, they never met anyone of the opposite sex of similar age and unattached. Some I met were extremely attractive, although I met some ugly ones too; typical cross-section really.
Strange attitude that only about 20% of women find men on onine dating sites attractive. I have come across many things thay make people unattractive - bad breath, bad complexion, bad teeth, bad attitude, poor figure, limp personality
Anyway in the process of using dating sites for 3 years, I would only get about a 1/70 ratio of people I message.
Is that 1 in 70 reply, 1 in 70 you meet, or 1 in 70 you get to do whatever? I was in a dating club (pre-internet - it was letter based). Got about 25% replies, met about 5%, further dates with about 2%, went steady (as it was called, not the same as a LTR) with 1%, married 0.2%.
Someone said you should have been more selective in who to contact. I started that way, looking for certain personalities, but got very few replies; then I just wrote to all that were in a 5 year age bracket and not taller than me (there were no photos in that club). Suprisingly, I got on very well with girls who were quite opposite to me - dimmer and more outgoing, including an ex- Bunny Girl (not as exciting as you might think). FWIW I was mentally stable, not nerdy, quite well off, and not all that bad looking - which is assumed to be what girls look for, but it cetainly isn't, not these days anyway.
one of the reasons for me stopping to use dating sites is that if God has someone for me, he'll hook me up
I never met any girl outside of dating clubs, and by "met" I mean to have a social conversation > 10 seconds. It remains a mystery to me how people meet each other any other way.
Dating sites, where you go when you want to be judged by your selfies. Looking to meet someone with similar interests? Look elsewhere, loser.
Here we go : cue posts saying "My mother told me never to trust anyone I meet on a dating website".
:-
Here's some more helpful advice
Never trust anyone you meet in a bar
Never trust anyone you meet in a theatre
Never trust anyone you meet at a party
Never trust anyone you meet in the street
Never trust anyone you meet on holiday
Never trust anyone you meet if arraged by a friend
Never trust anyone unless you already knew them before you were born
Perhaps you would like to advise us where this "elsewhere" is exactly, I never found it. Do you know, when you actually meet someone (whether through internet dating or "elsewhere") you get to see what they actually look like anyway? If they look like Jo Brand (and that's not your thing), or they ask for money (and that's not your thing either) you walk away.
Solution? Give 'em a film camera. You can get a Pentax K1000 for $50 these days, with 1 50mm lens (no zooming!).
Pentax K1000 ? Why not an MX? I am a Pentax fan and never understood the popularity of the K1000 - OK it was because it was recommended by every art course over a 20 year period, but I never understood that either.
The K1000 was out-of date when introduced. Pentax had not long tooled up for the K series (K2, KM, KX) when the fashion suddenly changed to smaller cameras. So they came out with the smaller M series (including the professional all-manual MX). But what now to do with the K series production line? And indeed parts (eg the metering) left over from the even older Spotmatic SP1000? Answer - they brought out the brutally spartan K1000 at a bargain price - at first. People called it a "family" camera - but surely a family camera needs a self-timer! At one point it was being sold [by Jessops] alongside the superb little MX at a higher price, yet people still bought it!
Swapping the engine makes working on cars ridiculous.
I think you misunderstood what I meant - I meant that the makers could offer an engine swap that would be designed to go (nearly) straight in. Diesel locos' are typically re-engined at least once in their life. I don't mean an exact replacement (that happens too) but replacement by a more modern design of engine. The engine maker, the loco maker and the railway company talk to each other and come up with engine mountings and pipe connections etc such that each loco can have its swap carried out in a few hours at the depot and is back on the line the next day.
Most people will go for a car that lasts 6 years and costs $20k over a car that lasts 20 years and costs $120k
A car to last 20 years should not cost 6 times as much as, or even 20% more than, one that lasts 6 years, because parts could and should be made more easily replacable, easily extending its life. When most people think that a car is worn out, or too rusty, the percentage loss of material by wear or rust is orders of magnitude less than the total. Things such as bearings and oil seals could and should be made far easier and cheaper to replace than they are.
I am an engineer who has worked on the repair of cars, buses, ships and trains, and it is ridiculous how difficult it is to replace parts and generally maintain cars compared with those other three, especially when you take the greater size of the others into consideration. Some of those others (and aircraft too I understand) are going strong even after 50 years, not just 20. A quantum leap in engine technology? - just swap the engine. It is also shocking how crappy is the quality on cars compared with those others. Incidentally, I run a car that is 20 years old with nearly a third of a million miles on it.
It is the whims of fashion that dictates the short lives of cars.
Or perhaps in the spirit of Alfred Nobel, he's merely seeking a better mention in history.
There is no perhaps about it. He is following a predictable pattern also followed by eg Nobel, Carnegie and Rockefeller. Nobel seems to have succeded - in his time he had been described as "The Merchant of Death". I don't think Gates will succeed though - his fouling of electronic document formats will see to that.
Anyway, WTF else does anyone do with such money that it would be physically impossible to "enjoy" it all themselves? He could buy a new car about every 20 seconds for the rest of his life (do the math) but would not have time to get in and out of each one, let alone drive it. I don't consider myself a generous person , but if I had that money I would be giving it to charity (but not Gate's ones).
I thought we were talking about Bill Gates.
Your little list can be easily trumped by Thomas Edison alone...
The context was human life and health. Edison was in the world of science and technology. In any case it was Edison's unsung underlings who made most of the advances. For other science examples, do you seriously think that the likes of Newton, Bacon, Galileo and Einstein were motivated by profit?
We need to distinguish between profit and salary. Many scientists and medical pioneers want a comfortable, or at least a livable, salary if only so that they can concentrate on what they like doing. Newton had his allowance as a Cambridge professor, and was later rewarded by the post of Master of the Royal Mint. But he did not make his discoveries so that he could become Master of the Mint. In fact he lived like a monk. Francis Bacon, as Lord Chancellor of England, was already a very wealthy man yet took an interest in science as a hobby, such that he was the founder of the modern scientific method. Bacon certainly did not look or expect any profit from his scienctific work - he did not need it.
Microsoft ...... practically made the computing industry,
When were you born? I owned a computer (an Amstrad) in 1983. I had one (a PDP-11) in my office at work from 1977. I first used one (called Titan) remotely in 1966.
I first heard of Microsoft in 1988.
That's some claim - probably refers to it's small turning circle (why would I care?). But that incredible fork angle (looks about 45 deg) means that the front end will be falling as you steer from straight-ahead (assuming he has given the front wheel some caster) which means a gravitational tendency to steer away from the straight ahead, made worse by the relatively low gyroscopic stability of small wheels. Conventional fork geometry evolved the way it is for good reason, but I guess he had to compromise to get the rider's positions to where they are.
Still, as I guess these things will never get further than the seaside promenade or the pavement (US sidewalk) I suppose it does not matter
Because I'm from Africa, you lie and claim I don't understand money. Fuck you and your racist kind. I not only understand money, but I make six figures in the Detroit area.... because I'm black ... Fuck you Republicans .. [blah blah blah]
Wow, what a post! It's made my day.
I didn't see any mention of "black", "Africa" or "Republican" in the GP, he was talking about subsistence farmers and clearly you are not one. OTOH, you are close to projecting yourself as another stereotype, one I won't describe here but not a very nice one.
Anyway, the GP saying that subsistence farmers don't understand money is nonsense. We get too much of earnest do-good romantic hype giving the impression that everyone in Africa lives in a straw hut, trades with hippo teeth, and wears loincloths. It's bullshit.
BMW had that. They even had a navigation system that only talked to you and nobody liked it. Every single person wanted a moving map display.
I was obviously misssed in that survey as I don't drive a BMW.
However, I was an early adopter of satnavs and from the first I have gone by the voice and never looked at them (they are face down on a shelf), except when programming before a journey. I regard a satnav as the equivalent of ny 12 yo son giving directions while he reads the map. Then when other people started using satnavs I was horrified to see them being positioned to be read while driving. I thought it must be illegal or would surely soon be banned. It still makes my hair stand on end to think of drivers peering at a satnav map while driving. Using a mobile phone must be far safer, yet that is banned.
Suicide bombers are going hate this.
They'll love it. Sit in the passenger cabin and just think harder than the pilot.
The summary states that the goal of this is to make flying accessible to more people. Does that mean the research is being done so quadriplegics can still pilot a plane or is it for John Q. Public?
It is supposed to be for the quadriplegics. By throwing that into the hype they hope to get the funding. It's bollocks; what prevents flying being "accessible" (the funding trigger word) is the cost of it. Here in the UK I don't suppose more than one person in 10,000 could afford their own plane, and the concept of owning or hiring a plane does not even ever enter most people's minds. I just once knew someone who took a few flying lessons.
Furthermore, for reasons never explained, disabled people are assumed to be poor (they get significant discounts and allowances for some things) so it might equally well be assumed that they are the least likely people to afford planes (unless the taxpayer is going to give them free rides). All this assumes that we want the flying of planes to be more accessible. Do we? Where I live there are often what seem to be learners doing circles above in light aircraft for half an hour at a time, chucking out noise and CO2 apparently just for the thrill of it. I wish they'd fuck off.
Is this a real problem to be solved or is it merely a solution looking for a problem?
Solution looking for a problem.
If you're afraid of getting hit by automated cars, it's by definition irrelevant whether there's a kid in them or not
The OP's case was that his kid is safer going on a journey (to the sweetshop?) in an automated car than on his bike. I am saying that while it may be safer for the kid, it is not safer for anyone his vehicle hits.
I'd think that improper maintenance would be a thing of the past with autonomous vehicles. The car would simply refuse to operate if it was overdue for maintenance, and it could go drive itself for repairs ...... when ... 99/100 of [accidents] are attributable to poor maintenance, we'll suddenly see pressure to fix that problem.
You think the car driving itself for repairs (refusing to be satisfied with DiY work) would solve the problem? As I mentioned in a previous post, I was once a mechanic in a dealers - I would say middle-market. What I saw done by other mechanics (teenagers, some of them) would make your hair stand on end and burst the bubble of your argument.
I have had a main dealer work on my car just twice in its 15 year life - for essential recalls. Believe me, I took everything they did apart and reassembled afterwards to check their work. On one occasion it was not OK - they had done the wheel nuts up with a 6ft scaffold pole I reckon because that is what it took me to undo them. I needed to replace some of the wheel nuts as they had damaged them with the excessive force.