"If we don't tax everything, restrict energy usage and return to the 1700s..."
Return to the 1700s? Those people are almost as suspicious of the Enlightenment as they are of nuclear energy and GMOs. Gotta return to the Stone Age and reclaim our Neandertal heritage.
"what if birds don't like to feed on the GMO mosquitoes, or fish don't like their larvae?"
Because there are no liberal birds or fish. They will go on eating what they have been used to eating in their environment, since the GMO version does not taste any different.
But you're missing the whole point of gene drives, which are to in a short time eliminate the target species. So long as there are other prey species for the birds and fish to move on to, no problem. Fish flies, damsel flies, there is a plethora of substitute species out there. In any case, only a small fraction of the 3,000 mosquito species even bite humans. Eliminating them all would not even cut into the supply of mosquitos in the environment, since the species remaining after the gene drive would just populate to fill the gap..
I keep it simple and don't add to the problem by using more chat software. I use e-mail for work and longer messages, I use SMS/text for shorter messages with friends. That's it. I'm not going to get bogged down using a dozen different messaging services. If I really need to get in touch with someone I can always call them.
Business loves email because there is a writtten record. This is also why messaging is better than voice calling for business.
When I have a consumer problem for which I need to contact a CSR, I always use the online chat option if available, because I can save a transcript. And when the conversation contains RMA numbers, error codes and ticket numbers, chat means no mistakes when you transcribe them to other media.
Use Internet to send messages with some specified degree of 'richness', such as unlimited length and large attachments, falling back to SMS if either end cannot support the rich protocol. Note that I mean the iMessage approach, not Apple's specific implementation of it. I doubt that a standard enriched protocol would include balloons backed up by cheering, for one.
Maybe this is the lawsuit happy American in me talking, but $73,500 sounds like chump change for a mistake that could quite literally ruin your life even after a retraction.
Britain does not award large legal settlements, except for the near-capital crime of insulting a famous person.
"spacecraft costing 300 million euro and up. If I ever fuck up I guarantee you _will_ read about it here on slashdot. "
And if your EUR 300M spacecraft reaches its goal, and accomplishes wondrous things there, but you happen to be wearing the wrong shirt at the press conference, you will be hearing from Huffington Post forever.
"They could try, but I'm sure some native somewhere will sue because it's heating up the bodies of their ancestors..."
Could be. That is after all the place where even the idea of passenger ferries connecting the islands evoked a massive protest. Yes, the only way you can get from one part of Hawaii to the other is by plane, and apparently they like it that way.
Call me lazy, but one reason I want an autonomous vehicle is so I can get "valet-like" service at any restaurant. My town gets really busy on the weekends and finding a parking space near a restaurant is difficult. If I could stop in front, get out, say "go find a parking spot" then when I am done phone the car to come pick me up. That would be fabulous.
I see the biggest impact of autonomous vehicles, long term, as being the elimination of parking associated with destinations. The one-third of each US city devoted to parking lots will now be available for other uses. Apartment blocks will owe have parks. Strip malls will grow from today's L's and U's around parking acreage to fat O's that have a public center space for uses like outside seating. Shopping malls will become the cores of entire civic centers that will grow around them.
Autonomous cars will need highrise warehouse-like storage space when off duty that can be relegated to industrial areas, no longer associated with human destinations.
Slashdot Mirror
"If we don't tax everything, restrict energy usage and return to the 1700s..."
Return to the 1700s? Those people are almost as suspicious of the Enlightenment as they are of nuclear energy and GMOs. Gotta return to the Stone Age and reclaim our Neandertal heritage.
Hopefully it won't drive like a BMW driver.
Yeah! Make MEXICO pay for the supercomputing tech!
Actually we are by default making China pay for it. The downside of which is that we will have to beg for time on it on their terms.
Baroque Cycle is nothing compared to the adaptation Ron Howard is actually fucking contemplating doing:
http://collider.com/seveneves-...
yes, please... or Snowcrash
I vote for Cryptonomicon.
"what if birds don't like to feed on the GMO mosquitoes, or fish don't like their larvae?"
Because there are no liberal birds or fish. They will go on eating what they have been used to eating in their environment, since the GMO version does not taste any different.
But you're missing the whole point of gene drives, which are to in a short time eliminate the target species. So long as there are other prey species for the birds and fish to move on to, no problem. Fish flies, damsel flies, there is a plethora of substitute species out there. In any case, only a small fraction of the 3,000 mosquito species even bite humans. Eliminating them all would not even cut into the supply of mosquitos in the environment, since the species remaining after the gene drive would just populate to fill the gap..
What I'm proposing is a standard based on the iMessage idea.
I keep it simple and don't add to the problem by using more chat software. I use e-mail for work and longer messages, I use SMS/text for shorter messages with friends. That's it. I'm not going to get bogged down using a dozen different messaging services. If I really need to get in touch with someone I can always call them.
Business loves email because there is a writtten record. This is also why messaging is better than voice calling for business.
When I have a consumer problem for which I need to contact a CSR, I always use the online chat option if available, because I can save a transcript. And when the conversation contains RMA numbers, error codes and ticket numbers, chat means no mistakes when you transcribe them to other media.
In a word: spam.
And worse still, spam folders.
"It really is the easiest language in the world."
Gee, I can't wait to book a vacation to Esperantia. Is it in the Schengen boundary and can I connect through Heathrow?
SMS may be limiting, but it's the closest thing we have to a universal messaging standard. Let it be a minimum.
Use Internet to send messages with some specified degree of 'richness', such as unlimited length and large attachments, falling back to SMS if either end cannot support the rich protocol. Note that I mean the iMessage approach, not Apple's specific implementation of it. I doubt that a standard enriched protocol would include balloons backed up by cheering, for one.
We can only base our opinions on the facts which have been disclosed. Let BaE explain to a jury why it thought it behaved ethically.
Maybe this is the lawsuit happy American in me talking, but $73,500 sounds like chump change for a mistake that could quite literally ruin your life even after a retraction.
Britain does not award large legal settlements, except for the near-capital crime of insulting a famous person.
Or we could even go radical and allow edit until the first reply or moderation, like most of the other sites.
It's one of those unexplainable oddities of British culture, like hating redheads. No one seems to know how it got started.
I blame the puzzle-question job interviews for the rich variety of clever code out there that is hidden behind horrible user interfaces.
"spacecraft costing 300 million euro and up. If I ever fuck up I guarantee you _will_ read about it here on slashdot. "
And if your EUR 300M spacecraft reaches its goal, and accomplishes wondrous things there, but you happen to be wearing the wrong shirt at the press conference, you will be hearing from Huffington Post forever.
"Comments should be about why, not what. What should be easily visible in your code on its own."
Think of it as comments needing to be one level above the code. Function and section header descriptions should be two levels above.
+1 Painfully True.
Since cars would only be parked as demand slacks off from commuting peaks, an nowhere near where people are, none.
"They could try, but I'm sure some native somewhere will sue because it's heating up the bodies of their ancestors..."
Could be. That is after all the place where even the idea of passenger ferries connecting the islands evoked a massive protest. Yes, the only way you can get from one part of Hawaii to the other is by plane, and apparently they like it that way.
Ok, I'll just shoot you dead.
In the UK that would be a violation of the criminal's rights, with worse penalties than mugging.
"Exactly how many self-driving cars do you think each existing driver is going to buy?"
In the long run, zero. They will all be in fleets. Buying your own car will be like buying your own airplane, a specialty for the few.
Call me lazy, but one reason I want an autonomous vehicle is so I can get "valet-like" service at any restaurant. My town gets really busy on the weekends and finding a parking space near a restaurant is difficult. If I could stop in front, get out, say "go find a parking spot" then when I am done phone the car to come pick me up. That would be fabulous.
I see the biggest impact of autonomous vehicles, long term, as being the elimination of parking associated with destinations. The one-third of each US city devoted to parking lots will now be available for other uses. Apartment blocks will owe have parks. Strip malls will grow from today's L's and U's around parking acreage to fat O's that have a public center space for uses like outside seating. Shopping malls will become the cores of entire civic centers that will grow around them.
Autonomous cars will need highrise warehouse-like storage space when off duty that can be relegated to industrial areas, no longer associated with human destinations.