actually we can do it now with desalination, no advancement really needed.
Not economically. Industrial scale desalinization is still far too expensive to be practical in most places.
", Detroit, and Michigan in general, will be relevant again" nope, never happen. Crappy weather, high crime, republican stripping away representation for all but about 50,000 people, no industry... nothing really.
I have news for you. The Detroit Metro area is relevant NOW and has been for a long time. Don't confuse Detroit City with the greater Detroit metropolitan area. Detroit City has its problems and they'll take a while to solve but relatively few people live and work there. About 680,000 people live in Detroit City versus about 3,700,000 in the suburbs. Oakland county immediately to the north of Detroit City is one of the 10 wealthiest counties in the entire US, has a AAA bond rating (the highest possible) and 60% of the Fortune 500 have facilities in the county. It's a genuinely nice place to live - I should know because I live there. When most people say they are "from Detroit" what most really mean is that they live in Detroit Metro, ie the suburbs.
No industry? Hah! Michigan is still the beating heart of manufacturing in the US. The amount of manufacturing that goes on here is astonishing even with the auto industry problems. And it isn't just making cars. Not by a long shot. The number of engineers and high tech jobs here is only exceeded by 3 or 4 cities in the entire US. (do you have any idea how much technology goes into making cars?)
Oh and the weather is only "crappy" for part of the year if you can't handle snow. Spring, summer and fall in Michigan are gorgeous and so is winter once you get outdoors and move around. Personally I like to go skiing, snowshoeing, and skating and Michigan is terrific for outdoor activities year round. Within a 10 mile radius of my house I have over 16,000 acres of public parks with every outdoor activity imaginable available to me. Horse riding, skiing, running, biking, sailing, kayaking, golf, hiking, camping, etc. You name it I can be doing it (season permitting) within 30 minutes.
Pretty sure that's just what I invoked in the post you're replying to. And like I said: solar thermal works just fine today, and is very low tech, it's just a bit too pricey as things stand. But if you imagine 10 billion humans all consuming power at the rate Americans do today, Solar is pretty much the only thing that scales. One way or another, it's inevitable.
Fusion scales pretty well too and eliminates much of the carbon problems. It just has one remarkably icky downside. Solar thermal works but there is a reason very few have been built in northern climates. I agree though that we should probably roll out more of these stations wherever feasible.
One thing I think should happen is that we need to use roofs of businesses and factories for solar (photovoltaic probably) panels. The space is almost completely wasted presently. Think how much space in cities could be used for power generation. In select cases the economics of it even make sense today. Just a piece of the puzzle but probably an important one, particularly in places that use a lot of AC since the power is generated during the daytime right when the power need is highest.
Do you really doubt we can switch to a new infrastructure over the course of the next century if it becomes profitable to do so?
Of course not but that is a huge "if". Like you I'm actually pretty optimistic that solar will/should become a big part of the infrastructure if we can keep technology development going. It makes WAY too much sense not to do so. My response however was to your claim that we could feasibly (if impractically) do it today and I'm saying not really. We don't have the battery technology (yet) to make it really work and it is unclear if/when we ever will, we have a lot of other (probably resolvable) technical issues that we haven't worked out, and the economics of it are quite impossible even if we ignore the technical problems. Divorcing the technology from the economics as a mental exercise is interesting but impossible in the real world. I'm not saying we shouldn't pursue solar technologies with all rational haste (we should), just that we aren't quite that far along yet that I'm comfortable saying we could even theoretically make the switch today. I'm VERY hopeful however that the day we can make the switch isn't far off.
Yes, solar power will eventually obsolete all other forms for non-industrial use.
Easily and demonstrably not true unless you invoke as-yet undeveloped technology of uncertain viability. I think solar is terrific and should be used much more but it's not a cure all solution for every energy problem.
For non-transport use, we could really switch to solar-thermal today (not photoelectric cells, but the less efficient black pipe, mirror, and turbine solution). It's simply more expensive than other power sources, and storing power for overnight use is still more expensive so we don't.
No we could not. Even if the technology were adequate (it isn't - we don't have adequate battery technology) the economics of it are prohibitive. When I say cost prohibitive I don't just mean that it is a little more expensive. I mean that given the current state of the technology the cost would be astronomical. There are all sorts of unresolved technical issues and the conversion costs would be outrageous. Little of our transportation infrastructure is set up for electric, gas is widely used for heating, you have to allocate space for the power generation. Not to mention that generation in the rather cloudier and snow prone regions can be problematic.
Since all that's required is ordinary technological process, the change to electric cars will inevitably happen, but over the course of several decades.
What about airplanes? There is no reasonably feasible flight technology that is not based on fossil fuels.
LOL...if someone is charging you $10K to file it for you, then you are getting ripped off.
The cost isn't the patent submission fees. The primary cost is the lawyer you'll inevitably have to hire during the process. Getting a patent successfully through is actually more complicated than it might seem at first glance.
Decent headphones make open plan offices bearable.
Unless you hate wearing headphones and find music/talk distracting. Personally having to wear headphones all day would drive me insane in short order. I like a relatively quiet office with minimal visual or auditory distractions when I'm trying to get serious work done.
I don't know about that...Microsoft's offer of somewhere around $50B for Yahoo comes to mind.
I agree it was a really really really dumb offer and even dumber to turn down but at least Yahoo has profits of about $1 billion/year. The valuation was stupidly high but at least you could base it on something. $3 billion for a company with zero revenues is beyond ridiculous and turning it down has to be one of the dumbest business decisions in the last 20 years.
So basically Lenovo got a server manufacturer for almost $1Billion less than Snapchat is worth.
Which merely tells you that Facebook's acquisition team is very likely incompetent since Snapchat has zero revenue and unclear prospects for profitability. $3 billion is an absolutely absurd price and spending money like that is a big reason why I have no intention of buying Facebook stock. It also tells you that the owners of Snapchat are a bunch of weapons grade morons for turning down an offer like that. The only thing dumber than Facebook offering that much money for Snapchat was when Snapchat declined the offer.
1) BitCoin has very small per-transaction fees. There are a whopping-big number of credit card transactions each day, each with fees of about 5%. Bitcoin will eliminate most of these, for a whopping-big cost savings.
Bitcoin has small transaction fees because it has very low transaction volume, little infrastructure and most transactions are directly between parties who are relatively technically sophisticated. All of that will have to change and will cost more if bitcoin becomes popular. Furthermore EVERY other cost to using bitcoin is higher than with widely traded fiat currencies. It is riskier, more volatile, less liquid and if you think those things don't have costs you need to study your accounting. Bitcoin transaction fees are low because they have to be, not because bitcoin has a cost advantage.
2) BitCoin increases the market to people who don't have a bank account. That essentially doubles the potential customer base.
Exactly how is a currency that virtually no one accepts going to help someone who is struggling to the point the can't get a bank account?
3) BitCoin allows for micro-payments. This increases the number and type of sales possible.
Bitcoin may help with micro-payments but it is far from clear that it has a cost advantage in doing so. Micropayments are a problem because of the cost of transactional overhead which isn't simply a fee from the bank. Bitcoin does not make this overhead go away.
4) BitCoin almost eliminates counter-party risk.
Bullshit it does. It merely transfers much of the risk to the buyer who has less recourse in the event of a dispute. Not having a neutral authority in the transaction is a two edged sword. It might reduce transaction costs but it increases the risk and thus the costs.
BitCoin will bring enormous cost savings, and that's why people will use it.,
No it will not. I'm an accountant and I assure you that you are not accounting for all the costs of using bitcoin. You have not addressed exchange rate volatility, middle man fees, transactional infrastructure overhead, liquidity, security costs, and several others besides. If you want to make an argument that bitcoin has a cost advantage you have to address ALL the costs, not just transaction fees.
For many transactions, I expect that Bitcoin will be used the same way. You deposit Bitcoins at your bank. When you use a debit card, you aren't transmitting actual Bitcoins, but rather setting up a transaction that will be settled later by the bank and the seller... just like cash today.
Then what is the advantage for bitcoin? You are involving a middle man with the attendant fees AND you are incurring all kinds of other costs and risks as well as transaction infrastructure that I assure you is not free of charge.
When you deposit your Bitcoin, that will be a true Bitcoin transaction in which your bank will probably merge that value in with other Bitcoins it has obtained.
Then the bank has exchange rate risks and transaction infrastructure that they will have to charge for. Any time you maintain assets in a separate currency you are exposed to exchange rate volatility which is significant even for stable currencies.
"Bitcoin is the first Internetwide payment system where transactions either happen with no fees or very low fees (down to fractions of pennies)."
There may not be large third party fees but that does not mean the transactions are low cost. There are opportunity costs, exchange rate costs, liquidity costs, accounting costs, and more. I keep seeing people fixate on transaction costs as if those are the only costs in play. They are not. Any sane merchant is going to charge for the added cost of handling bitcoins. Even if you can eliminate any middle men from the transaction (unlikely with any meaningful transaction volume), you have plenty of costs to account for.
Since bitcoin is not widely accepted, setting up the transaction is ordinarily going to be more time consuming (thus more expensive) and unless you think your time is worth nothing you incur significant opportunity costs. If you employ an accountant like most businesses do these costs are easily quantifiable. Bitcoin is very volatile and any use of it assumes very significant exchange rate risk. This may reduce in time but it cannot go away entirely. If you use a middle man to facilitate the transaction so that you minimize exchange rate risk, congratulations you have just introduced transaction fees to the party and thus eliminated any point in using bitcoin. The currently transaction fees for bitcoin are low because they have to be, not because of any inherent cost advantage. Literally every other cost related to bitcoin is higher than for a widely accepted fiat currency like dollars.
there are no chargebacks – this is the part that is literally like cash – if you have the money or the asset, you can pay with it; if you don’t, you can’t. This is brand new. This has never existed in digital form before.
There are plenty of ways to exchange money digitally with no possibility of a charge back. Good luck doing a charge back on a wire transfer. Furthermore charge backs exist because of inevitable disputes between buyers and sellers, not to enable buyers to screw sellers. Sometimes buyers misrepresent (both intentionally and unintentionally) what they are selling. Sometimes there is genuine disagreement about the terms of the sale. Sellers may hate them but the exist for a very good reason. Charge backs have a cost but it is not a cost without value. There are plenty of transactions that simply will not take place if the buyer has no independent recourse in the event of a dispute.
people can trade with Bitcoin (anywhere, everywhere, with no fraud and no or very low fees)
The notion that fraud can be eliminated is absurd on the face of it. Bitcoin in no way, shape or form will eliminate transaction fraud. At best it might shift around how it occurs a little. The previous argument (bitcoin is like digital cash) directly contradicts this argument. The lack of charge backs merely changes the type of fraud that can occur giving more advantage to sellers over buyers.
And of course people cannot trade bitcoin "anywhere" because it only works if there is a computer involved on both sides of the transaction. That eliminates a HUGE portion of the global population and most transactions that currently are conducted with cash.
I think it's pretty difficult to say that the people that want a smaller more limited government is inherently authoritarian.
"Limited government" in republican-speak generally means government with less taxation authority particularly for things the democrats support. If the republicans were serious about genuinely more limited government they would be pushing for a smaller military but instead they increase military spending at every opportunity regardless of actual need. They also would be making serious efforts to limit medicare and social security which are another 50% of federal spending but they never really seriously address limiting those programs. Even when they do try it generally comes in the form of "screw the poor" legislation like eliminating food stamps with no alternative to replace it with. Also a lot of their social positions are incompatible with the concept of limited government. Their "family values" positions are a fundamentally a form of government supported social engineering. They are perfectly fine with a less limited government as long as it is for things that support their social agenda.
No, the republicans may want less expensive government but they certainly do not want genuinely limited government.
Most people haven't realized that the left is inherently authoritarian.
So is the right. The right wants a few rich guys that own everything to make all the decisions. They want limited government so their guys (the rich and mostly white ones with *ionaire at the end of their net worth) can be the ones with all the authority. The religious wing of the party wants their morals enforced by gunpoint on everyone else regardless of the hypocrisy and incompatibility with the principle of limited government.
The big delusion on the left is not that government can't be useful but rather that government can be trusted to restrain itself. There are plenty of examples of responsible government but many fewer of trustworthy government. We have separation of powers and various bits of over oversight for a reason. We also limit this power so that we don't drown in red tape. Government can be useful but it is very dangerous too. Government is run by people and people are easily corrupted, deluded and fallible.
I've always been generally right-leaning, and I am REALLY up in arms about the NSA stuff.
It's not really a left/right issue. It's an issue of how you feel about the 4th amendment and how much you trust the government to protect your civil liberties. I don't have any ideological objection to the government being empowered to look for dangerous criminals but I have a HUGE problem with them gutting my Constitutional rights in pursuit of these same criminals. It's NOT SUPPOSED to be convenient for the government to watch me. That is the entire point of the 4th amendment and a few others as well. Terrorists are criminals and I expect them to be treated as such under the law, particularly when the party under suspicion is a US citizen.
I think the problem is that circumstances have organized such that the executive branch no longer has meaningful oversight. Congress is unwilling to take a stand because anyone who does gets voted out of office for "being soft on terrorism". The judiciary has largely punted on the issue so far by claiming no one has standing to challenge. (It's unclear how you prove standing against a classified program that you can go to jail for talking about) Worst of all we have a surveillance program with zero accountability to the electorate. We have a secret program, doing secret activities, "overseen" by a secret (rubber stamp) court, with secret findings than are never required to be made public. Exactly how am I as a citizen supposed to make an informed evaluation of the actions of the NSA? Maybe what they are doing is fine (yeah I doubt it too) but I have no way to know.
You may be old enough that you aren't familiar with schools these days. I can assure you that for very many young "nerds", the world is actively and openly hostile towards intelligence, which makes it rather hard to develop those social skills
It's NOT about intelligence. It's about being different. I work directly with dozens of school children between the ages of 11 and 18 on a daily basis for about 4 months every year. Children will ostracize ANYONE who is different in any way but this is hardly limited to intelligence. Smart, dumb, awkward, foreign, racially different, accents, fat, skinny, small, large, it doesn't matter. If you are notably different then you will be harassed in some manner. Children do not have fully developed senses of empathy. Learning to deal with this is actually a valuable part of growing up. I run into overly sheltered children all the time who have NO idea how to deal with difficult situations. Painful as it may be sometimes, it is a part of social development.
But if you're trying to tell me that struggling with schoolwork is as emotionally painful as struggling socially, I absolutely disagree.
I am someone who at times has struggled with both schoolwork and social awkwardness. I am fairly smart and eventually attended some top universities but for various reasons I was a mediocre to poor student for most of my academic career, barely passing at times and was almost held back at least twice. I also was a shy and socially awkward kid with a funny name. YES, they both are crushing. It can be absolutely demoralizing to do poorly on schoolwork. Some people don't care just like some people don't care what others think but if you do care (and most do) it is devastating. You get told you will never amount to anything, that your future is hopeless, that you are trailing your peers and won't catch up, that teaching you is a waste of time. Worthless, hopeless, dumb, useless. I know because I've heard all that and none of it because of my social skills. If you think that isn't devastating to a young ego then you really don't get it. It doesn't just come from your peers, it comes from teachers and parents and adults who barely know you.
A socially adept bad student has, by definition, plenty of friends and support to fall back on, and his peers won't think any less of him for his poor education (until he graduates, at least)
I assure you that bad students get ridden every bit as hard if not worse than smart ones. I see it constantly. Even the ones with lots of friends get harassed by those very same "friends". The only reason they hang out is because the need for social inclusion is so strong that they will put up with being treated badly.
On the other hand, a nerd has few or no friends, and is openly derided and shunned by his peers.
Most people have few real friends. Nerds generally have their own social circles and in reality very few people fit the social pariah model you describe. It's more a question of degree.
The album was released on his new music service, which you may care about. Did you skip the headline too?
No I do not care about his music service. I assure you that I will never use it. This is barely news for nerds and it certainly isn't stuff that matters.
Am I getting grumpier or are you people getting stupider?
With those two exceptions California is actually largely Republican.
Right. That's why California has 38 Democrats versus 15 Republicans in the House of Representatives, 2 Democrat senators, over 60% of the voters vote Democrat in presidential elections and the Republicans haven't won a majority of the popular vote in presidential elections since 1988. (that's 25 years for those of you counting at home) The Democrats hold enormous majorities in the State House and State Senate and registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by over 2.5 million voters.
But you go ahead and keep believing that California is "largely Republican" if it helps you sleep at night.
Dotcom today released his debut album Good Times...
Please explain to me why on earth I should care? Seriously. Does this guy have any actual discernible musical ability or are we just seeing another talentless hack with a gift for self promotion?
She in no way represents the voters of California. She represents herself.
If she does not represent the voters then why do those same voters keep electing her? Senate races aren't gerrymandered so obviously she must have some significant appeal across the state to those who continue to vote her into office.
A lack of women or minorities in a particular field is not a "problem" which needs to be fixed.
You should not be so certain of that. The question is NOT should more women be in CS (or engineering in general) but rather why do not more women enter in the first place? The reason we care about the answer is because of the subtext question which is "are we getting the best possible people into the field?". It is reasonable to ask if we are unintentionally (or intentionally) driving talented women away from the field who might otherwise make valuable contributions.
Fact: People who want to study CS will enroll in CS classes. People, regardless of race or gender, who have no interest in CS, will not enroll in CS classes or take CS tests.
That is true but it isn't really the question being asked. The question is WHY does CS tend to skew so heavily male? I've got an engineering degree and the only field that seems to skew more heavily male is the catholic priesthood. I had many classes where less than 5% of the students were women. As a professional it is quite uncommon for me to run into female engineers. Unlike activities requiring raw physical strength, engineering does not obviously confer any physiological advantage to men so it seems reasonable to ask why so few women enter the field? No one has a definitive answer so far but that merely indicates that the question is a difficult one, probably with a multi-factorial answer. Perhaps the answer is uninteresting and things are fine the way they are but we don't know that unless we ask the question and search for the answer.
Nerds are only openly hostile toward the world at large because it was openly hostile to us first.
I'm guessing you self identify as a "nerd". That's cool, I suppose I am one as well - I certainly was one in my youth. But I'm relatively old compared to most of the folks reading this so maybe I've gained a little insight. Hope it helps.
The world is NOT any more hostile to "nerds" than to anyone else. Almost everyone finds the world to be a harsh place because it is. But not because it is hostile but rather because it is indifferent. If you act hostile towards the world just because you perceive you are being treated unjustly then you are in all likelihood simply hurting yourself. Your value and how you will be treated is based on what you can do for other people. Hard to be of value to others if you are openly hostile towards them. You cannot control how the world treats you but you can control how you respond to it. Think of it this way, would you respond well to someone who thinks the world hates them and lashes out at everyone?
In reality a lot of "nerds" are pretty smart people who in the long run do rather well for themselves. Smarts in the adult world is a highly valued commodity. Develop some social skills to go along with those smarts and that's a recipe for success. Your value in the this world is based on what you can do for other people. Companies do not hire you because you are a nice guy or a hard worker. Women do not date you because of your high IQ. You have to bring more to be of value. You social status is based on what you can do for others and what assets you bring to the party. In school being smart mostly only benefits yourself. Among young people with undeveloped empathy and social skills, this can be a hard social situation at times but it doesn't mean "nerds" have it worse than anyone else. I assure you that it is no easier to be socially adept but academically challenged - different but no easier. Very few people have the whole package.
Almost no colleges offer credit for taking AP tests regardless of score so high schoolers have absolutely no reason whatsoever to take those tests.
That's not remotely true. Each college has their own policies on if/how they accept AP classes for college credit but many do give credit for AP courses. I coach about 20 high school students in a sport and about 2/3rds of them take at least some AP courses. (smart group of kids, average GPA is around 3.6) Quite a few colleges accept them if your score is high enough. Furthermore AP classes can be beneficial in getting certain scholarships even if they aren't accepted for credit.
Oh and they typically charge money to take the tests as well.
Many states and municipalities subsidize the cost of taking these exams. Even unsubsidized, the cost of the exams in 2013 was $89 which is hardly prohibitive for a lot of students. Nearly half a million students took the AP English exam in 2013.
Why would anyone use a Starbucks app? My guess is that the security hole affected at most two people: The Starbucks marketing manager who wanted it and the guy who developed it.
The Starbucks app is THE most popular smartphone payment app for retailers out there. It allows you to bring up a barcode on your smartphone screen to pay. On the iPhone it also is aware of when you walk into a Starbucks location and you do not even have to pull up the app thanks to the Passbook on the iphone. You just swipe the screen and it brings the barcode up for payment. Very easy to use and faster than cash or credit card. Payment is behind the scenes with an credit card attached to a Starbucks card. You can have multiple cards and transfer balances between them. If you want to see the future of using a smartphone to pay for products, you should be looking at this app. Starbucks is way ahead of anyone else in implementing this stuff. If you actually go into a Starbucks you'll almost certainly see someone using their smartphone to pay for their drinks.
No I don't work for Starbucks and I'm not promoting or disparaging the product. Merely describing what Starbucks has done. It is attention worthy whether you like Starbucks or not.
I think you are confusing quality with consistency...At Starbucks you are getting a known quality, it may not always be the best but its always the same. Independent places can be hit and mis, but usually once you find one that makes a product you like, its always good there
And you seem to be confusing quality with preference. Preference can be a component of quality but quality is more complex and some aspects of quality have a strong subjective component. Part of quality is fitness for a particular purpose, part of it is consistency of output, part of it is the relative superiority of the product, part of it is conformance to specifications, etc. Reliability, sustainability, serviceability and other factors may play a role.
You cannot really define quality solely in terms of customer preferences because customers often prefer things that are objectively inferior or even dangerous by some measure. We have customers at my company all the time that specify products that if built to their specs would not meet industry standards would fail in the field. What the customer thinks they want isn't always what they actually want.
When it comes to Starbucks products, they have very good quality by some measures. Their quality on more subjective measures depends on who is doing the evaluation. Obviously a lot of people like their products and are willing to pay a lot for them. Others not so much. I think a lot of people just dislike Starbucks not so much based on their merits of their products but rather based on a more vague dislike of the corporation or the experience of the place.
Slashdot Mirror
actually we can do it now with desalination, no advancement really needed.
Not economically. Industrial scale desalinization is still far too expensive to be practical in most places.
", Detroit, and Michigan in general, will be relevant again"
nope, never happen. Crappy weather, high crime, republican stripping away representation for all but about 50,000 people, no industry... nothing really.
I have news for you. The Detroit Metro area is relevant NOW and has been for a long time. Don't confuse Detroit City with the greater Detroit metropolitan area. Detroit City has its problems and they'll take a while to solve but relatively few people live and work there. About 680,000 people live in Detroit City versus about 3,700,000 in the suburbs. Oakland county immediately to the north of Detroit City is one of the 10 wealthiest counties in the entire US, has a AAA bond rating (the highest possible) and 60% of the Fortune 500 have facilities in the county. It's a genuinely nice place to live - I should know because I live there. When most people say they are "from Detroit" what most really mean is that they live in Detroit Metro, ie the suburbs.
No industry? Hah! Michigan is still the beating heart of manufacturing in the US. The amount of manufacturing that goes on here is astonishing even with the auto industry problems. And it isn't just making cars. Not by a long shot. The number of engineers and high tech jobs here is only exceeded by 3 or 4 cities in the entire US. (do you have any idea how much technology goes into making cars?)
Oh and the weather is only "crappy" for part of the year if you can't handle snow. Spring, summer and fall in Michigan are gorgeous and so is winter once you get outdoors and move around. Personally I like to go skiing, snowshoeing, and skating and Michigan is terrific for outdoor activities year round. Within a 10 mile radius of my house I have over 16,000 acres of public parks with every outdoor activity imaginable available to me. Horse riding, skiing, running, biking, sailing, kayaking, golf, hiking, camping, etc. You name it I can be doing it (season permitting) within 30 minutes.
You won't be saying that when Google offers $5B.
Yes I will unless there is some actual revenue and a path to profitability.
Pretty sure that's just what I invoked in the post you're replying to. And like I said: solar thermal works just fine today, and is very low tech, it's just a bit too pricey as things stand. But if you imagine 10 billion humans all consuming power at the rate Americans do today, Solar is pretty much the only thing that scales. One way or another, it's inevitable.
Fusion scales pretty well too and eliminates much of the carbon problems. It just has one remarkably icky downside. Solar thermal works but there is a reason very few have been built in northern climates. I agree though that we should probably roll out more of these stations wherever feasible.
One thing I think should happen is that we need to use roofs of businesses and factories for solar (photovoltaic probably) panels. The space is almost completely wasted presently. Think how much space in cities could be used for power generation. In select cases the economics of it even make sense today. Just a piece of the puzzle but probably an important one, particularly in places that use a lot of AC since the power is generated during the daytime right when the power need is highest.
Do you really doubt we can switch to a new infrastructure over the course of the next century if it becomes profitable to do so?
Of course not but that is a huge "if". Like you I'm actually pretty optimistic that solar will/should become a big part of the infrastructure if we can keep technology development going. It makes WAY too much sense not to do so. My response however was to your claim that we could feasibly (if impractically) do it today and I'm saying not really. We don't have the battery technology (yet) to make it really work and it is unclear if/when we ever will, we have a lot of other (probably resolvable) technical issues that we haven't worked out, and the economics of it are quite impossible even if we ignore the technical problems. Divorcing the technology from the economics as a mental exercise is interesting but impossible in the real world. I'm not saying we shouldn't pursue solar technologies with all rational haste (we should), just that we aren't quite that far along yet that I'm comfortable saying we could even theoretically make the switch today. I'm VERY hopeful however that the day we can make the switch isn't far off.
Yes, solar power will eventually obsolete all other forms for non-industrial use.
Easily and demonstrably not true unless you invoke as-yet undeveloped technology of uncertain viability. I think solar is terrific and should be used much more but it's not a cure all solution for every energy problem.
For non-transport use, we could really switch to solar-thermal today (not photoelectric cells, but the less efficient black pipe, mirror, and turbine solution). It's simply more expensive than other power sources, and storing power for overnight use is still more expensive so we don't.
No we could not. Even if the technology were adequate (it isn't - we don't have adequate battery technology) the economics of it are prohibitive. When I say cost prohibitive I don't just mean that it is a little more expensive. I mean that given the current state of the technology the cost would be astronomical. There are all sorts of unresolved technical issues and the conversion costs would be outrageous. Little of our transportation infrastructure is set up for electric, gas is widely used for heating, you have to allocate space for the power generation. Not to mention that generation in the rather cloudier and snow prone regions can be problematic.
Since all that's required is ordinary technological process, the change to electric cars will inevitably happen, but over the course of several decades.
What about airplanes? There is no reasonably feasible flight technology that is not based on fossil fuels.
LOL...if someone is charging you $10K to file it for you, then you are getting ripped off.
The cost isn't the patent submission fees. The primary cost is the lawyer you'll inevitably have to hire during the process. Getting a patent successfully through is actually more complicated than it might seem at first glance.
Decent headphones make open plan offices bearable.
Unless you hate wearing headphones and find music/talk distracting. Personally having to wear headphones all day would drive me insane in short order. I like a relatively quiet office with minimal visual or auditory distractions when I'm trying to get serious work done.
I don't know about that...Microsoft's offer of somewhere around $50B for Yahoo comes to mind.
I agree it was a really really really dumb offer and even dumber to turn down but at least Yahoo has profits of about $1 billion/year. The valuation was stupidly high but at least you could base it on something. $3 billion for a company with zero revenues is beyond ridiculous and turning it down has to be one of the dumbest business decisions in the last 20 years.
So basically Lenovo got a server manufacturer for almost $1Billion less than Snapchat is worth.
Which merely tells you that Facebook's acquisition team is very likely incompetent since Snapchat has zero revenue and unclear prospects for profitability. $3 billion is an absolutely absurd price and spending money like that is a big reason why I have no intention of buying Facebook stock. It also tells you that the owners of Snapchat are a bunch of weapons grade morons for turning down an offer like that. The only thing dumber than Facebook offering that much money for Snapchat was when Snapchat declined the offer.
1) BitCoin has very small per-transaction fees. There are a whopping-big number of credit card transactions each day, each with fees of about 5%. Bitcoin will eliminate most of these, for a whopping-big cost savings.
Bitcoin has small transaction fees because it has very low transaction volume, little infrastructure and most transactions are directly between parties who are relatively technically sophisticated. All of that will have to change and will cost more if bitcoin becomes popular. Furthermore EVERY other cost to using bitcoin is higher than with widely traded fiat currencies. It is riskier, more volatile, less liquid and if you think those things don't have costs you need to study your accounting. Bitcoin transaction fees are low because they have to be, not because bitcoin has a cost advantage.
2) BitCoin increases the market to people who don't have a bank account. That essentially doubles the potential customer base.
Exactly how is a currency that virtually no one accepts going to help someone who is struggling to the point the can't get a bank account?
3) BitCoin allows for micro-payments. This increases the number and type of sales possible.
Bitcoin may help with micro-payments but it is far from clear that it has a cost advantage in doing so. Micropayments are a problem because of the cost of transactional overhead which isn't simply a fee from the bank. Bitcoin does not make this overhead go away.
4) BitCoin almost eliminates counter-party risk.
Bullshit it does. It merely transfers much of the risk to the buyer who has less recourse in the event of a dispute. Not having a neutral authority in the transaction is a two edged sword. It might reduce transaction costs but it increases the risk and thus the costs.
BitCoin will bring enormous cost savings, and that's why people will use it.,
No it will not. I'm an accountant and I assure you that you are not accounting for all the costs of using bitcoin. You have not addressed exchange rate volatility, middle man fees, transactional infrastructure overhead, liquidity, security costs, and several others besides. If you want to make an argument that bitcoin has a cost advantage you have to address ALL the costs, not just transaction fees.
For many transactions, I expect that Bitcoin will be used the same way. You deposit Bitcoins at your bank. When you use a debit card, you aren't transmitting actual Bitcoins, but rather setting up a transaction that will be settled later by the bank and the seller... just like cash today.
Then what is the advantage for bitcoin? You are involving a middle man with the attendant fees AND you are incurring all kinds of other costs and risks as well as transaction infrastructure that I assure you is not free of charge.
When you deposit your Bitcoin, that will be a true Bitcoin transaction in which your bank will probably merge that value in with other Bitcoins it has obtained.
Then the bank has exchange rate risks and transaction infrastructure that they will have to charge for. Any time you maintain assets in a separate currency you are exposed to exchange rate volatility which is significant even for stable currencies.
From TFA
"Bitcoin is the first Internetwide payment system where transactions either happen with no fees or very low fees (down to fractions of pennies)."
There may not be large third party fees but that does not mean the transactions are low cost. There are opportunity costs, exchange rate costs, liquidity costs, accounting costs, and more. I keep seeing people fixate on transaction costs as if those are the only costs in play. They are not. Any sane merchant is going to charge for the added cost of handling bitcoins. Even if you can eliminate any middle men from the transaction (unlikely with any meaningful transaction volume), you have plenty of costs to account for.
Since bitcoin is not widely accepted, setting up the transaction is ordinarily going to be more time consuming (thus more expensive) and unless you think your time is worth nothing you incur significant opportunity costs. If you employ an accountant like most businesses do these costs are easily quantifiable. Bitcoin is very volatile and any use of it assumes very significant exchange rate risk. This may reduce in time but it cannot go away entirely. If you use a middle man to facilitate the transaction so that you minimize exchange rate risk, congratulations you have just introduced transaction fees to the party and thus eliminated any point in using bitcoin. The currently transaction fees for bitcoin are low because they have to be, not because of any inherent cost advantage. Literally every other cost related to bitcoin is higher than for a widely accepted fiat currency like dollars.
there are no chargebacks – this is the part that is literally like cash – if you have the money or the asset, you can pay with it; if you don’t, you can’t. This is brand new. This has never existed in digital form before.
There are plenty of ways to exchange money digitally with no possibility of a charge back. Good luck doing a charge back on a wire transfer. Furthermore charge backs exist because of inevitable disputes between buyers and sellers, not to enable buyers to screw sellers. Sometimes buyers misrepresent (both intentionally and unintentionally) what they are selling. Sometimes there is genuine disagreement about the terms of the sale. Sellers may hate them but the exist for a very good reason. Charge backs have a cost but it is not a cost without value. There are plenty of transactions that simply will not take place if the buyer has no independent recourse in the event of a dispute.
people can trade with Bitcoin (anywhere, everywhere, with no fraud and no or very low fees)
The notion that fraud can be eliminated is absurd on the face of it. Bitcoin in no way, shape or form will eliminate transaction fraud. At best it might shift around how it occurs a little. The previous argument (bitcoin is like digital cash) directly contradicts this argument. The lack of charge backs merely changes the type of fraud that can occur giving more advantage to sellers over buyers.
And of course people cannot trade bitcoin "anywhere" because it only works if there is a computer involved on both sides of the transaction. That eliminates a HUGE portion of the global population and most transactions that currently are conducted with cash.
I think it's pretty difficult to say that the people that want a smaller more limited government is inherently authoritarian.
"Limited government" in republican-speak generally means government with less taxation authority particularly for things the democrats support. If the republicans were serious about genuinely more limited government they would be pushing for a smaller military but instead they increase military spending at every opportunity regardless of actual need. They also would be making serious efforts to limit medicare and social security which are another 50% of federal spending but they never really seriously address limiting those programs. Even when they do try it generally comes in the form of "screw the poor" legislation like eliminating food stamps with no alternative to replace it with. Also a lot of their social positions are incompatible with the concept of limited government. Their "family values" positions are a fundamentally a form of government supported social engineering. They are perfectly fine with a less limited government as long as it is for things that support their social agenda.
No, the republicans may want less expensive government but they certainly do not want genuinely limited government.
Most people haven't realized that the left is inherently authoritarian.
So is the right. The right wants a few rich guys that own everything to make all the decisions. They want limited government so their guys (the rich and mostly white ones with *ionaire at the end of their net worth) can be the ones with all the authority. The religious wing of the party wants their morals enforced by gunpoint on everyone else regardless of the hypocrisy and incompatibility with the principle of limited government.
The big delusion on the left is not that government can't be useful but rather that government can be trusted to restrain itself. There are plenty of examples of responsible government but many fewer of trustworthy government. We have separation of powers and various bits of over oversight for a reason. We also limit this power so that we don't drown in red tape. Government can be useful but it is very dangerous too. Government is run by people and people are easily corrupted, deluded and fallible.
I've always been generally right-leaning, and I am REALLY up in arms about the NSA stuff.
It's not really a left/right issue. It's an issue of how you feel about the 4th amendment and how much you trust the government to protect your civil liberties. I don't have any ideological objection to the government being empowered to look for dangerous criminals but I have a HUGE problem with them gutting my Constitutional rights in pursuit of these same criminals. It's NOT SUPPOSED to be convenient for the government to watch me. That is the entire point of the 4th amendment and a few others as well. Terrorists are criminals and I expect them to be treated as such under the law, particularly when the party under suspicion is a US citizen.
I think the problem is that circumstances have organized such that the executive branch no longer has meaningful oversight. Congress is unwilling to take a stand because anyone who does gets voted out of office for "being soft on terrorism". The judiciary has largely punted on the issue so far by claiming no one has standing to challenge. (It's unclear how you prove standing against a classified program that you can go to jail for talking about) Worst of all we have a surveillance program with zero accountability to the electorate. We have a secret program, doing secret activities, "overseen" by a secret (rubber stamp) court, with secret findings than are never required to be made public. Exactly how am I as a citizen supposed to make an informed evaluation of the actions of the NSA? Maybe what they are doing is fine (yeah I doubt it too) but I have no way to know.
You may be old enough that you aren't familiar with schools these days. I can assure you that for very many young "nerds", the world is actively and openly hostile towards intelligence, which makes it rather hard to develop those social skills
It's NOT about intelligence. It's about being different. I work directly with dozens of school children between the ages of 11 and 18 on a daily basis for about 4 months every year. Children will ostracize ANYONE who is different in any way but this is hardly limited to intelligence. Smart, dumb, awkward, foreign, racially different, accents, fat, skinny, small, large, it doesn't matter. If you are notably different then you will be harassed in some manner. Children do not have fully developed senses of empathy. Learning to deal with this is actually a valuable part of growing up. I run into overly sheltered children all the time who have NO idea how to deal with difficult situations. Painful as it may be sometimes, it is a part of social development.
But if you're trying to tell me that struggling with schoolwork is as emotionally painful as struggling socially, I absolutely disagree.
I am someone who at times has struggled with both schoolwork and social awkwardness. I am fairly smart and eventually attended some top universities but for various reasons I was a mediocre to poor student for most of my academic career, barely passing at times and was almost held back at least twice. I also was a shy and socially awkward kid with a funny name. YES, they both are crushing. It can be absolutely demoralizing to do poorly on schoolwork. Some people don't care just like some people don't care what others think but if you do care (and most do) it is devastating. You get told you will never amount to anything, that your future is hopeless, that you are trailing your peers and won't catch up, that teaching you is a waste of time. Worthless, hopeless, dumb, useless. I know because I've heard all that and none of it because of my social skills. If you think that isn't devastating to a young ego then you really don't get it. It doesn't just come from your peers, it comes from teachers and parents and adults who barely know you.
A socially adept bad student has, by definition, plenty of friends and support to fall back on, and his peers won't think any less of him for his poor education (until he graduates, at least)
I assure you that bad students get ridden every bit as hard if not worse than smart ones. I see it constantly. Even the ones with lots of friends get harassed by those very same "friends". The only reason they hang out is because the need for social inclusion is so strong that they will put up with being treated badly.
On the other hand, a nerd has few or no friends, and is openly derided and shunned by his peers.
Most people have few real friends. Nerds generally have their own social circles and in reality very few people fit the social pariah model you describe. It's more a question of degree.
The album was released on his new music service, which you may care about. Did you skip the headline too?
No I do not care about his music service. I assure you that I will never use it. This is barely news for nerds and it certainly isn't stuff that matters.
Am I getting grumpier or are you people getting stupider?
I would guess the reverse is true.
With those two exceptions California is actually largely Republican.
Right. That's why California has 38 Democrats versus 15 Republicans in the House of Representatives, 2 Democrat senators, over 60% of the voters vote Democrat in presidential elections and the Republicans haven't won a majority of the popular vote in presidential elections since 1988. (that's 25 years for those of you counting at home) The Democrats hold enormous majorities in the State House and State Senate and registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by over 2.5 million voters.
But you go ahead and keep believing that California is "largely Republican" if it helps you sleep at night.
Dotcom today released his debut album Good Times...
Please explain to me why on earth I should care? Seriously. Does this guy have any actual discernible musical ability or are we just seeing another talentless hack with a gift for self promotion?
Science Olympiad is not a sport.
True but it isn't what I coach either. I coach a wrestling team. Thanks for playing though.
She in no way represents the voters of California. She represents herself.
If she does not represent the voters then why do those same voters keep electing her? Senate races aren't gerrymandered so obviously she must have some significant appeal across the state to those who continue to vote her into office.
A lack of women or minorities in a particular field is not a "problem" which needs to be fixed.
You should not be so certain of that. The question is NOT should more women be in CS (or engineering in general) but rather why do not more women enter in the first place? The reason we care about the answer is because of the subtext question which is "are we getting the best possible people into the field?". It is reasonable to ask if we are unintentionally (or intentionally) driving talented women away from the field who might otherwise make valuable contributions.
Fact: People who want to study CS will enroll in CS classes. People, regardless of race or gender, who have no interest in CS, will not enroll in CS classes or take CS tests.
That is true but it isn't really the question being asked. The question is WHY does CS tend to skew so heavily male? I've got an engineering degree and the only field that seems to skew more heavily male is the catholic priesthood. I had many classes where less than 5% of the students were women. As a professional it is quite uncommon for me to run into female engineers. Unlike activities requiring raw physical strength, engineering does not obviously confer any physiological advantage to men so it seems reasonable to ask why so few women enter the field? No one has a definitive answer so far but that merely indicates that the question is a difficult one, probably with a multi-factorial answer. Perhaps the answer is uninteresting and things are fine the way they are but we don't know that unless we ask the question and search for the answer.
Nerds are only openly hostile toward the world at large because it was openly hostile to us first.
I'm guessing you self identify as a "nerd". That's cool, I suppose I am one as well - I certainly was one in my youth. But I'm relatively old compared to most of the folks reading this so maybe I've gained a little insight. Hope it helps.
The world is NOT any more hostile to "nerds" than to anyone else. Almost everyone finds the world to be a harsh place because it is. But not because it is hostile but rather because it is indifferent. If you act hostile towards the world just because you perceive you are being treated unjustly then you are in all likelihood simply hurting yourself. Your value and how you will be treated is based on what you can do for other people. Hard to be of value to others if you are openly hostile towards them. You cannot control how the world treats you but you can control how you respond to it. Think of it this way, would you respond well to someone who thinks the world hates them and lashes out at everyone?
In reality a lot of "nerds" are pretty smart people who in the long run do rather well for themselves. Smarts in the adult world is a highly valued commodity. Develop some social skills to go along with those smarts and that's a recipe for success. Your value in the this world is based on what you can do for other people. Companies do not hire you because you are a nice guy or a hard worker. Women do not date you because of your high IQ. You have to bring more to be of value. You social status is based on what you can do for others and what assets you bring to the party. In school being smart mostly only benefits yourself. Among young people with undeveloped empathy and social skills, this can be a hard social situation at times but it doesn't mean "nerds" have it worse than anyone else. I assure you that it is no easier to be socially adept but academically challenged - different but no easier. Very few people have the whole package.
Almost no colleges offer credit for taking AP tests regardless of score so high schoolers have absolutely no reason whatsoever to take those tests.
That's not remotely true. Each college has their own policies on if/how they accept AP classes for college credit but many do give credit for AP courses. I coach about 20 high school students in a sport and about 2/3rds of them take at least some AP courses. (smart group of kids, average GPA is around 3.6) Quite a few colleges accept them if your score is high enough. Furthermore AP classes can be beneficial in getting certain scholarships even if they aren't accepted for credit.
Oh and they typically charge money to take the tests as well.
Many states and municipalities subsidize the cost of taking these exams. Even unsubsidized, the cost of the exams in 2013 was $89 which is hardly prohibitive for a lot of students. Nearly half a million students took the AP English exam in 2013.
Why would anyone use a Starbucks app? My guess is that the security hole affected at most two people: The Starbucks marketing manager who wanted it and the guy who developed it.
The Starbucks app is THE most popular smartphone payment app for retailers out there. It allows you to bring up a barcode on your smartphone screen to pay. On the iPhone it also is aware of when you walk into a Starbucks location and you do not even have to pull up the app thanks to the Passbook on the iphone. You just swipe the screen and it brings the barcode up for payment. Very easy to use and faster than cash or credit card. Payment is behind the scenes with an credit card attached to a Starbucks card. You can have multiple cards and transfer balances between them. If you want to see the future of using a smartphone to pay for products, you should be looking at this app. Starbucks is way ahead of anyone else in implementing this stuff. If you actually go into a Starbucks you'll almost certainly see someone using their smartphone to pay for their drinks.
No I don't work for Starbucks and I'm not promoting or disparaging the product. Merely describing what Starbucks has done. It is attention worthy whether you like Starbucks or not.
I think you are confusing quality with consistency...At Starbucks you are getting a known quality, it may not always be the best but its always the same. Independent places can be hit and mis, but usually once you find one that makes a product you like, its always good there
And you seem to be confusing quality with preference. Preference can be a component of quality but quality is more complex and some aspects of quality have a strong subjective component. Part of quality is fitness for a particular purpose, part of it is consistency of output, part of it is the relative superiority of the product, part of it is conformance to specifications, etc. Reliability, sustainability, serviceability and other factors may play a role.
You cannot really define quality solely in terms of customer preferences because customers often prefer things that are objectively inferior or even dangerous by some measure. We have customers at my company all the time that specify products that if built to their specs would not meet industry standards would fail in the field. What the customer thinks they want isn't always what they actually want.
When it comes to Starbucks products, they have very good quality by some measures. Their quality on more subjective measures depends on who is doing the evaluation. Obviously a lot of people like their products and are willing to pay a lot for them. Others not so much. I think a lot of people just dislike Starbucks not so much based on their merits of their products but rather based on a more vague dislike of the corporation or the experience of the place.