How about having people shop at a virtual store either located at the store or at each customer's home via the computer. Rfid tags would identify each product for a robotic arm to push it on a conveyor belt to be transported to a drop off area where the consumer would pick it up and pay for it.
Yeah, right. A new shopping model that combines the disadvantages of online shopping (can't examine product, try it on, etc) with all the disadvantages of brick-and-mortar shopping (must be physically present, wait in line to pay). I'm sure people will be all over your fantastic idea.
What if everyone is mainly wrong? What if search and PageRank and AdSense are Google's corporate apex. Most companies would be content with that, but Google isn't supposed to be like most companies. But what if they are?
What if Cringely came to work one day and couldn't think of a single bit of unfounded speculation, or a single word of bizarre Apple cheerleading? So far there are no signs of this happening, but what if it did?
"Also interesting is the acknowledgment that for all the attention paid to Asimov's three laws of robotics, many of his stories deal with situations where those laws are broken, bent or otherwise shown to be invalid."
First of all, Asimov's "three laws of robotics" aren't "laws" in any stretch of the imagination. They were only a plot device in a series of really good books.
Indeed. In fact, he misses Asimov's point entirely. It's not just many of the stories, but all of the stories that hinge on some flaw in the three laws. Asimov's point was that you can't make intelligences behave morally by simply making them a slave to hard-coded laws and leave it at that. You have to fully educate them in ethics and morality, and give them free will to choose the correct path. It's actually an indirect criticism of the tendency for national or religious human authorities to try to force "right behavior" in the ignorant masses via edicts, commandments, laws, and the like, instead of encouraging education and critical thinking.
In a perfect world, he would have tech skills, but he doesn't. So he manages.
The Peter Principle in action. You are making excuses for a lack of understanding.
This isn't the Peter Principle, but rather the exact opposite. The Peter Principle would have a competent tech promoted to management, and being unable to manage his department because he's only good at being a tech. This is more like the Dilbert Principle, wherein incompetent workers are promoted to management because the competent ones are needed at the bottom to do the actual work.
Have you actually compared the new Batman to the previous ones? The only commonality is the source material. Batman Begins did well because the creative team respected the source material and made a movie that moviegoers actually wanted to see. Which is the whole point, supposedly.
Indeed. I, for one, never really cared for the previous "Edward ScissorBat" versions. I have nothing against Tim Burton-- I love Nightmare Before Christmas, and Corpse Bride looks like it'll be good-- I just don't think he set the Dark Knight along the proper path. It was all just too....well...Tim Burton-y. That, and I could go the whole rest of my life without having to listen to Danny Elfman's latest minor variation of his only damn composition.
I haven't seen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory yet, but I greatly fear it'll just turn out to be "Edward ScissorWonka"....
I do, and strictly out of respect for the folks whose names don't make top billing; after all, they're the ones putting in all the work.
As someone who used to work as a PA, I can tell you you're wasting your time. Name recognition is almost entirely without value to "non talent". You sure as shit aren't going to remember any of those people's names, and their lives are totally unaffected by how many people see their names in the credits. There's no solidarity between the 4th assistant sound tech's helper and some schlub sitting in the audience in Omaha. He already got his money and is working on the next god-awful piece of Hollywood tripe. Staying to watch the credit "out of respect" is as irrational as applauding at the end of a movie you liked. The intended recipients of that applause/respect are nowhere near you to receive it, so it's utterly pointless.
Considering that the average GP these days spends about 7 actual minutes with each patient, and in some cases prescribes more than one drug per visit, 27 scripts per hour is probably only slightly above the curve. I could easilly see this slipping under the radar if it wasn't for people hunting down the spammer he was working through.
Except, of course, these prescriptions were all for hydrocodone(Vicodin), which the DEA tracks. 27 scripts an hour when most of them are antibiotics or blood pressure meds might go unnoticed, but 27 a day, every day, of the same sched II controlled substance is just asking to be caught.
15 years later and we're still using olive drab and woodland camouflage as the default color for personal equipment!
They are changing to a new style BDU, but not changing the camo for anything else?
They're cranking out the new ACU at full bore, but yeah, the load bearing equipment is still OD. Part of the problem is that it doesn't wear out very fast and they've got so much stockpiled already. Surely a color modification is planned, but it may take a few years to get into the pipeline.
Getting hit with radar lock is a pretty good indicator.
What about infrared-guided missiles?
IR guidance only works at short ranges. If they're shooting IR-only missiles, either a) you're flying too low to the ground to use anything but fast visual arc transit, hope, and determination to avoid getting hit by SAMs, or b) you're being fired on by another plane at short range, in which case you or AWACS had him on radar several minutes ago anyway and know he's there.
But when the bullet comes down it will do so at the speed of a rain drop. Not exactly dangerous since bullets aren't too heavy. You might get a bruise or something. Boo hoo.
Moron. A bullet fired straight up will come down and almost the same speed it was launched. Terminal velocity of a raindrop != terminal velocity of a bullet. Bullets shot into the air on July 4 and Jan 1 kill people with irritating frequency because of idiots like you with guns.
I see. According to you "served in the Armed Forces" doesn't count as "ventured near the man's world of government and war".
So what are your qualifications, anyway? Can you describe any one of the many policies and procedures the military regularly rehearses and employs every day, to keep from becoming sitting ducks? Have you, in fact, been any closer to war and government than your favorite media outlet?
Funny how trolls like him never seem to have an adequate answer to this line of questioning. Know-it-alls who watch a little "Roll Call" with R Lee Ermey and play a couple games of paintball and think they're Patton, von Steuben, and Otto Skorzeny all rolled into one. Monday morning quarterbacking the nightmares of military logistics with convenient 20:20 hindsight. Personally, I'm impressed with how quickly the military has adjusted, what with the tremendous amount of cold war inertia up till 1990. Dimwits like him don't realize that you can't build weapons systems that are all things in all situations. The HMMWV was designed for WW3 in europe, when the red hordes were to come pouring out of east germany through the fulda gap. My god, the amount of time I spent in training looking at maps of the fulda gap. Memorizing warsaw pact TO&E. Learning Russian, for god's sake! It's amazing we've been able to change as much as we have. 15 years later and we're still using olive drab and woodland camouflage as the default color for personal equipment!
"It is impossible for most psyches to kill a human they have not dehumanized
You give people alot of credit where none is due. People do not have to dehumanize anyone to kill them. Case in point? Most murders (76%) are comitted by people that know the victim. 22% of the murders in 2002 were comitted by family members.
Logically it would semm to be much more difficult to "dehumanize" (whatever the $%^@ that referrs to in a psychological sense) someone that you know personally than a total stranger. Seems to me like it takes knowing someone to be able to to kill them, not the other way around.
Exactly. For the most part, only a family member or very close friend can push your buttons effectively enough to drive you to murder. Strangers? Bah! Gotta be crazy to want to murder someone you don't know.
Establishes a new post-grant opposition system in the patent office
How does this work? Can anyone file to get a patent looked at? How does this lessen patent litigation?
Dunno how it works, but presumably anyone can file. Can't imagine on what basis they could possibly limit it. The way this new system would lessen litigation is obvious. Presently, the only way to get a daft patent invalidated after it's approved is through the court system, which is slow and expensive.
The object is to help veterans come to terms with what they've experienced in places like Iraq and Afghanistan by immersing vets in the sights and sounds of those theaters of battle.
Sights and sounds aren't enough, I don't think. The sense most strongly liked to memory is the sense of smell. I by no means have PTSD like a lot of these guys do (I never came under direct fire, just had to worry about mines and unexploded ordinance mostly), but the smell of diesel exhaust or bug repellant still make me feel distinctly twitchy. I used to also get nervous seeing war movies, but after a couple years I was able to watch 'em fine without feeling like flipping out. But even to this day, driving behind a school bus if I catch a whiff of that diesel, my stomach tightens up.
I don't understand why people sit around crying about the fact that someone has died. Why not celebrate the life they lived? If anything, it seems like these LCD screens could do that well.
What I want to know is what people's obsession is with the spot where the body is buried. C'mon, they ain't in there no more, and unless they were a real weirdo, the cemetary isn't a place they spent much time in when they were alive. Isn't it better to sit around the living room and watch those videos about the dead person with your relatives than to stand around in a place constructed for the purpose of burying dead meat?
I dunno. I come from a cremation family, so to me the whole idea of interrment is weird on its own.
The dialogue isn't realistic, but it is often extrenely sharp and snappy. Heck, try watching a film like Closer (featuring Natalie Portman no less) that's been adapted from a play: people do not talk like that in real life, but damn there's some good sharp dialogue in there.
Ugh. Terrible example. Closer was a horrifyingly pretentious play inexpertly turned into an even worse movie. The dialogue was painfully stilted, the characters totally unsympathetic, and the interactions were frequently completely nonsensical.
It's important to note that Einstein's 1939 and 1940 letters of introduction and warning to Franklin D. Roosevelt can be reasonably called the primary stimulus of the Manhattan Project.
I don't personally use the word "accuse", but he bears some responsibility for the events of 60 years ago, and for the nuclear arms race that followed.
The fact that the letter itself was essentially a warning that the Germans were probably already pursuing it (which they were)indicates that the events were already in motion. Einstein felt a great deal of guilt over that letter, but frankly it would have happened either way. Szilard, Teller, and Wigner basically goaded Einstein into writing that letter based on a leak by Bohr that fission had been achieved, opening the door to possible fission weapons. At that point, the cat was essentially already out of the bag. Szilard himself actually drafted the letter-- Einstein only signed it. Clearly, had Einstein refused, they'd have found someone else to sign it. They only needed a name on the letter well known enough get the president's attention.
Yo dudes... back off
I wasn't accusing Einstein of anything, I just thought it was an amusing coincidence that these two related anniversaries, falling within mere days of each other, reflect on either the greatest or worst tendencies of mankind.
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries are August 6 and 9. Einstein's paper titled "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on its Energy Content?" was published in June, and the three page addendum containing the famous equation was received September 27. 49 days apart isn't much of a coincidence. More like 1:7 odds, really.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, right. A new shopping model that combines the disadvantages of online shopping (can't examine product, try it on, etc) with all the disadvantages of brick-and-mortar shopping (must be physically present, wait in line to pay). I'm sure people will be all over your fantastic idea.
Yes. For sake of clarity I should have said "this Cringely is an ass".
No, because the encryption is not for the purpose of controlling access to copyrighted material. DMCA is about copyright, not encryption.
What if Cringely came to work one day and couldn't think of a single bit of unfounded speculation, or a single word of bizarre Apple cheerleading? So far there are no signs of this happening, but what if it did?
Cringely is such an ass.
First of all, Asimov's "three laws of robotics" aren't "laws" in any stretch of the imagination. They were only a plot device in a series of really good books.
Indeed. In fact, he misses Asimov's point entirely. It's not just many of the stories, but all of the stories that hinge on some flaw in the three laws. Asimov's point was that you can't make intelligences behave morally by simply making them a slave to hard-coded laws and leave it at that. You have to fully educate them in ethics and morality, and give them free will to choose the correct path. It's actually an indirect criticism of the tendency for national or religious human authorities to try to force "right behavior" in the ignorant masses via edicts, commandments, laws, and the like, instead of encouraging education and critical thinking.
The Peter Principle in action. You are making excuses for a lack of understanding.
This isn't the Peter Principle, but rather the exact opposite. The Peter Principle would have a competent tech promoted to management, and being unable to manage his department because he's only good at being a tech. This is more like the Dilbert Principle, wherein incompetent workers are promoted to management because the competent ones are needed at the bottom to do the actual work.
Indeed. I, for one, never really cared for the previous "Edward ScissorBat" versions. I have nothing against Tim Burton-- I love Nightmare Before Christmas, and Corpse Bride looks like it'll be good-- I just don't think he set the Dark Knight along the proper path. It was all just too....well...Tim Burton-y. That, and I could go the whole rest of my life without having to listen to Danny Elfman's latest minor variation of his only damn composition. I haven't seen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory yet, but I greatly fear it'll just turn out to be "Edward ScissorWonka"....
As someone who used to work as a PA, I can tell you you're wasting your time. Name recognition is almost entirely without value to "non talent". You sure as shit aren't going to remember any of those people's names, and their lives are totally unaffected by how many people see their names in the credits. There's no solidarity between the 4th assistant sound tech's helper and some schlub sitting in the audience in Omaha. He already got his money and is working on the next god-awful piece of Hollywood tripe. Staying to watch the credit "out of respect" is as irrational as applauding at the end of a movie you liked. The intended recipients of that applause/respect are nowhere near you to receive it, so it's utterly pointless.
Sheesh. What are you invested in that nets you more than 10% a year? Cocaine futures?
Except, of course, these prescriptions were all for hydrocodone(Vicodin), which the DEA tracks. 27 scripts an hour when most of them are antibiotics or blood pressure meds might go unnoticed, but 27 a day, every day, of the same sched II controlled substance is just asking to be caught.
They are changing to a new style BDU, but not changing the camo for anything else?
They're cranking out the new ACU at full bore, but yeah, the load bearing equipment is still OD. Part of the problem is that it doesn't wear out very fast and they've got so much stockpiled already. Surely a color modification is planned, but it may take a few years to get into the pipeline.
I've seen ballet performances that made me wish for a THAAD launcher.
What about infrared-guided missiles?
IR guidance only works at short ranges. If they're shooting IR-only missiles, either a) you're flying too low to the ground to use anything but fast visual arc transit, hope, and determination to avoid getting hit by SAMs, or b) you're being fired on by another plane at short range, in which case you or AWACS had him on radar several minutes ago anyway and know he's there.
It is. Big ol' ducted fan attached via a clutch mechanism to the engine. In the AF and Navy versions the space is filled by a fuel tank.
Moron. A bullet fired straight up will come down and almost the same speed it was launched. Terminal velocity of a raindrop != terminal velocity of a bullet. Bullets shot into the air on July 4 and Jan 1 kill people with irritating frequency because of idiots like you with guns.
Funny how trolls like him never seem to have an adequate answer to this line of questioning. Know-it-alls who watch a little "Roll Call" with R Lee Ermey and play a couple games of paintball and think they're Patton, von Steuben, and Otto Skorzeny all rolled into one. Monday morning quarterbacking the nightmares of military logistics with convenient 20:20 hindsight. Personally, I'm impressed with how quickly the military has adjusted, what with the tremendous amount of cold war inertia up till 1990. Dimwits like him don't realize that you can't build weapons systems that are all things in all situations. The HMMWV was designed for WW3 in europe, when the red hordes were to come pouring out of east germany through the fulda gap. My god, the amount of time I spent in training looking at maps of the fulda gap. Memorizing warsaw pact TO&E. Learning Russian, for god's sake! It's amazing we've been able to change as much as we have. 15 years later and we're still using olive drab and woodland camouflage as the default color for personal equipment!
Exactly. For the most part, only a family member or very close friend can push your buttons effectively enough to drive you to murder. Strangers? Bah! Gotta be crazy to want to murder someone you don't know.
How does this work? Can anyone file to get a patent looked at? How does this lessen patent litigation?
Dunno how it works, but presumably anyone can file. Can't imagine on what basis they could possibly limit it. The way this new system would lessen litigation is obvious. Presently, the only way to get a daft patent invalidated after it's approved is through the court system, which is slow and expensive.
Or, looking at it another way, switching from a completely proprietary system to a half proprietary system is only pulling one leg out of the trap.
Sights and sounds aren't enough, I don't think. The sense most strongly liked to memory is the sense of smell. I by no means have PTSD like a lot of these guys do (I never came under direct fire, just had to worry about mines and unexploded ordinance mostly), but the smell of diesel exhaust or bug repellant still make me feel distinctly twitchy. I used to also get nervous seeing war movies, but after a couple years I was able to watch 'em fine without feeling like flipping out. But even to this day, driving behind a school bus if I catch a whiff of that diesel, my stomach tightens up.
What I want to know is what people's obsession is with the spot where the body is buried. C'mon, they ain't in there no more, and unless they were a real weirdo, the cemetary isn't a place they spent much time in when they were alive. Isn't it better to sit around the living room and watch those videos about the dead person with your relatives than to stand around in a place constructed for the purpose of burying dead meat?
I dunno. I come from a cremation family, so to me the whole idea of interrment is weird on its own.
Ugh. Terrible example. Closer was a horrifyingly pretentious play inexpertly turned into an even worse movie. The dialogue was painfully stilted, the characters totally unsympathetic, and the interactions were frequently completely nonsensical.
I call BS. There is Xeon, and Itanium.
Itanium uses the AMD64/EM64T instruction set? What's IA-64 then?
The fact that the letter itself was essentially a warning that the Germans were probably already pursuing it (which they were)indicates that the events were already in motion. Einstein felt a great deal of guilt over that letter, but frankly it would have happened either way. Szilard, Teller, and Wigner basically goaded Einstein into writing that letter based on a leak by Bohr that fission had been achieved, opening the door to possible fission weapons. At that point, the cat was essentially already out of the bag. Szilard himself actually drafted the letter-- Einstein only signed it. Clearly, had Einstein refused, they'd have found someone else to sign it. They only needed a name on the letter well known enough get the president's attention.
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries are August 6 and 9. Einstein's paper titled "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on its Energy Content?" was published in June, and the three page addendum containing the famous equation was received September 27. 49 days apart isn't much of a coincidence. More like 1:7 odds, really.