"If you instruct your robot to go 2 meters forward, and then wait 40 minutes at least, just t check if it got stuck or everything is fine, you're not going to do much science in a year."
So if your theory is correct, humans exploring Mars directly should get lots more done in a year than humans exploring via remote probes. Well, let's check the scoreboard! Hmmm, what year did you have in mind? The last several all seem to say "Humans with probes: lots. Humans going there: squat".
"Communication lag and inflexibility. That's why humans can do much, much more (like many orders of magnitude more) than any currently imaginable robot. Communication lag and inflexibility."
Getting there and not dying. That's why humans with probes can do much, much more (like, infinity times more) than any currently actual humans with space suits. Getting there and not dying.
"Because what the Rovers have accomplished in [roughly] 4000 rover days could have been done in [roughly] 20 man days and probably done better to boot."
Rovers haven't acomplished squat. Humans using rovers to manage the difficulties of space have accomplished quite a lot. Humans using spacesuits to do so have spent a lot more money, to much less effect.
Your argument would suggest exploration by humans who go there is much more effective than exploration by humans who operate remote probes. So why have the humans who operate remote probes accomplished lots of exploration on Mars with a tiny fraction of the budget of the humans who go there, who are skimming the atmosphere exploring a can they built?
In deciding humans who go there are a better way to solve the problem, you are ignoring the difficulty of getting there and remaining operational. Well, here's a hint: Getting there and remaining operational is the entire problem. Nothing about exploring Mars is tricky in the least besides getting there and not dying. The solution that makes it easiest to get to Mars and do stuff is the best one, because that's the problem. Remote probes are a better way to get to Mars and do stuff.
Saying a human with a shovel would dig a hole on Mars faster than a slow rover with a wimpy little scoop is stupid; a hundred-ton backhoe is obviously the way to go if you don't care about the cost of getting there. Wait... I'm not sure of the rules, does he get to use a shovel, or do only bare hands count as actual digging? This no-using-the-right tools thing doesn't make sense to me.
"In practice, the missions are almost always one shots, if a probe is lost it's game over for that mission" So then you do another mission. And after a thousand or so, you'll have used up the budget and time required for a manned mission. We've lost some probes; we've sent more. No biggie, and we're getting results. Meanwhile, at fantastic expense, I hear the ISS guys managed to get their toilet working again, and have high hopes it will keep going for a few more years until we get tired of paying and the whole thing slips from "barely beyond the atmosphere" into burning up.
"you still need to buy the apps through a central Android store."
False. The rest of your misapprehensions appear to stem from this one. Anyone can write apps for Android, and anyone can install them, with out the involvement of a third party. Refusing to support music from Apple would not be possible because anyone could write an app that did. That's ignoring the fact that "music from Apple" means "mp3".
Well, I disagree with your reading of the argument.
"I'm not interested in an iWhatever because..." is not an argument, it's trivia. Nobody should be expected to care why one particular person wants one or not.
The point is "You should not buy an iWhatever because..." The argument is that if the model embraced by Apple becomes dominant, the world will be a less wonderful place than if it does not.
Saying Apple is unjust to make such a product is absurd, sure. But it is a different thing to suggest consumers ought to consider what business models they are encouraging, and that they might conclude not buying this was a righteous action.
The argument "This is bad for the world, you should not buy it.", made to consumers, is not inherently absurd. You may or may not agree. You may wish to engage that argument or to ignore it. But you can't reasonably dismiss it by telling me not to buy one; nor by telling me Apple has the right to make it. Those are non sequitur responses to to the suggestion being made: You should not buy one.
"Where's the evidence for that? People manage to ride bikes with panniers loaded with cargo."
Yes, people do. Me, for example. My evidence is not a detailed research study; I'm just relating my opinion, based on my experience. I periodically ride with 50 lbs aboard, so I know what that's like and it is on that basis that I judge how much benefit I'm going to want to get from that and conclude this thing isn't worth it.
"And the idea is to assist, so you can't compare it to the range and efficiency of a Segway or an electric scooter. Why does it need to have the same range of an electric scooter, anyway?"
It doesn't have to. But it costs the same as an electric scooter, so if it doesn't it ought to offer some other compelling advantage over the scooter. I do not perceive that advantage.
"Doesn't that depend upon how a person plans to use it, how far they need to travel?"
Maybe. The appropriateness of any vehicle depends on intended use, desired range and speed, budget, etc. It is my contention that the set of parameters that make this a more desirable option than an electric scooter or bicycle is a a very small set, possibly empty.
What way to use it and distance of travel to you imagine makes this a better choice than the alternatives?
Yes. And this article, and the poster you reply to, are encouraging people to not buy an Apple product. 'Just don't buy it' is not a rebuttal of the argument, it is the conclusion being argued for.
"If a manufacturer decides to encrypt that, or use specialized error codes, and only give the key to 'authorized dealers,' all of a sudden any non-authorized mechanic is in for a world of additional difficulty"
In fact, manufacturers have done exactly that, been sued, and lost. Keeping those error codes secret is not legal in the US.
"And why isn't the middle ground between a scooter and a bike very useful, exactly?"
If the vehicle has enough propulsion from the motor to bother with, it's too heavy to want to ride it when the battery is dead. If you're not going to ride it when the battery is dead, you may as well put on more battery to get better speed and range. The battery-powered vehicles you mention are much heavier than anything you want to pedal. The Segway is pretty marginal in terms of speed/range for general transportation yet still weighs 75-100 lbs. A 50 lb. electric bike will have a tiny fraction of the speed/range of a full-scale electric scooter, but is still too heavy to pedal any distance with a dead battery.
The bike shops I frequent all have 10K bikes on the wall too. But that's not the same as "stocking" or "moving". At Mellow Johnnys, the 10K bike would be the very "10 in the world" one I mentioned, built for a sponsored racer to use in the Tour.
The highest-end bikes "stocked" (several of each size) at a shop I frequent would be a Cervelo P4 at Excel Sports for 5K, but without wheels, so add in some top-end Zipp discs and you can get to 10k that way. But they're a national mail-order shop; even in Boulder the local population of elite time-trialists wouldn't justify much inventory at that level.
The fully-built over-10K bike hanging up to be drooled over in your local high-end shop isn't there to be purchased. It's there to make you feel thrifty buying a 4K bike.
If someone wants to spend 11K of their own money on a non-custom bike, I won't say they were wrong to do so. But I might say it is quite likely they are being stupid.
Coming back to comparisons with the article, if someone wants to spend $2300 of their own money on a Schwinn Varsity, they are definitely stupid every time. I think the case with the bike/scooter in the article is closer to the Schwinn. Just because 10K bikes exist doesn't mean I can't conclude this $2300 scooter is a bad deal.
"Even if you only capture and re-use half of the energy, it adds up even in a moderately hilly area."
If you can capture and reuse half the energy, apply for a patent immediately. But when you say "The theory is sound" and "it adds up", you are not correct; you have not added it up.
The inefficiency of the system is tangential. Regardless of that, the majority of the energy expended will be lost as air resistance before your system even gets a chance to lose most of the rest of it to inefficiency. I sometimes ride up a mountain near my house. I'm going uphill, at a moderate slope, for 15 miles. If I could capture all the energy from breaking as I descend that would be... pretty much nothing. I don't use the brakes until I get to the very bottom. Air resistance slows me down all I need, and more than I want. Commuter cyclist will need to stop more often than that, but still, the energy bicycle brakes absorb and throw away as heat is not comparable to what goes into the pedals. If it was anywhere close, your bike would melt.
Regenerative breaking will make you drain your batteries down slightly slower than without. If that is enough to be worth the cost is debate-able, at best. But it's absolutely not worth the weight if you're not already carrying batteries and a motor in the first place.
"I agree that Sanyo is doing a terrible job of conveying exactly what the benefit of this thing actually is. I certainly wouldn't pay $2000 for a half-assed electric moped."
The 'benefit' is that you can plug it in; It is a half-assed electric moped. I don't know that they are doing a terrible job of conveying that, so much as that it is not that great.
"They are planning to enter production sometime this year"
They lie.
"but no hard details yet."
No hard details such as how much it weighs. The problems they solve by making it all self contained aren't actually problems. The only real problem with electric bicycles is weight. Making all the weight rotate makes that problem a lot worse. They have extensive slick marketing materials that talk about all sorts of things that are lovely about this wheel, and never mention weight as an issue worth discussing.
Yeah, Bluetooth! Eliminate an ounce or two of wire to control your fifty pound rear wheel. Sounds great. Once they graduate, those guys have a bright future working on the Moller Skycar.
"Can you still pedal a scooter effectively when the battery is flat?"
It weighs Fifty Pounds. When the battery is flat, it's not a good bike. It's not even a really bad bike. When the battery isn't flat, it's not-so-great scooter.
"Besides, they're still new. The price will drop." Nah, someone comes out with one of these every few years. They don't last long enough for the price to drop any, because they aren't very good vs other options that cost a lot less. I don't see how that will change unless batteries get radically better, which they have not done. The middle ground between being a bike and being a scooter just isn't a very useful place to be.
I can confirm that, as I recently sold my car for about that much. I spent the money on a bicycle.
While I don't think I'm an idiot, I don't really disagree with your larger point. The bicycle in question is useless as practical transportation. It has no racks and I wouldn't leave it locked up outside anywhere, assuming I was willing to carry a lock after paying that much for a lightweight bike. The pair of bicycles that had already replaced the car cost maybe $500 combined.
"$2300 is considerably less than what an unmotorized high-end bicycle costs."
Well, I have a bicycle that cost about that, and the people I ride with have ones that cost between that and twice as much. But let's be serious; none of us would consider commuting on these bicycles. I don't have a lock for my road bike because I would never consider leaving it somewhere that one was required.
I commute on a couple of bikes; the nice one is worth maybe $400.
Violet Crown looks like they make lovely bicycles, and I wish them all the luck, but; I've got an extracycle that can do all their bikes can (as it's the same, just kludgeier), and it cost me a heck of alot less. Picking out the best-fitting used mtb frame at the sports consignment store provides a pretty good fit. Certainly not as 'optimal' as a custom build, but come on. It's a cargo bike. 3K? WTF?
"if a $10K conventional bike makes sense for someone (and lots of them do sell!)" Selling doesn't equal making sense. And "lots" "sell"? The only 10K bike I've heard of was the one stolen from Lance's bike shop, of which it was mentioned "10 exist in the world". If a 10K bike makes sense for you and you don't get it free in an endorsement deal, somethings wrong.
In any case, look at the picture of the electric moped in this article. It is not competing with the latest Cervelo, nor with VioletCrown, nor with Optibike. It's competing with a $400 Electra Townie so $2300 is stupid, or with a $2000 scooter, so its lame performance is stupid.
"No, you still miss the point. The idea is not that you charge up the battery and then take it for a long trip over flat road. It's still a bicycle, not a motorcycle."
It's a motorcycle; you plug it into the wall According to their website, charge time is 3.5 hours.
Regenerative breaking sounds lovely, and that's probably why they include it. But do the math on the efficiency of capturing that energy and storing it, and using it again, and there's no way it's worth 10 pounds, let alone 40.
Any trip someone is realistically going to make on this thing, more of the power is coming out of the wall than their legs. Like most "electric bicycles", this is a pedal-assisted electric moped. If someone would just market them that way, I'd probably think it was cool. But a 50 lb bicycle just sucks.
"If it proves true, then that'll be *very* interesting"
Certainly! Vast realms of physics will be thrown out as we try to understand how photons with a millionth the energy needed to have sucha an effect via known processes can do so depending on the information content of the radio waves.
"If it proves false, like I would blindly guess, then the radiation/EMF/(insert pseudo science here) absorbing crystal industry is going to plummet!"
If it proves false, (as I would confidently conclude on the basis of mountains of excellent evidence) I don't expect the various snake oil industries will take any more notice than they have every other time.
I understand you are critiquing the Cowards spelling, but it is worth noting that he is incorrect factually as well. The condition the other poster ascribes to his mother in law is an actual one.
"I seriously doubt that WiFi radiation could do the same thing"
As you should. Sunlight includes frequencies of light (particularly ultra-violet) whose photons have enough energy to break chemical bonds, including those in your mother in laws skin that cause the problem. "Wifi radiation" is radio waves, which have radically lower frequencies. The energy of those photons is a millionth of what would be required to cause a problem.
And, of course, radio-frequency waves are all over the place, constantly swamping this guys body all the time. Unless his body synthesizes the wrong proteins based on the informational content of the waves, he's wrong about the cause of his symptoms.
"I don't see a problem with using 'allergy' as a short-hand for 'negative physiological reaction' in this kind of case."
I do see a problem with it. My daughter has serious, actual allergies to certain foods. I'm sensitive to people using "allergy" to mean various things that it doesn't, because it leads to people not taking allergies seriously; Which could kill my daughter.
I agree that the legitimacy of this guys grievance does not depend on whether we incorrectly call it "allergy" or not. So let's not.
"Many allergic reactions (like my own seasonal allergies) don't come and go like a light switch in the presence or absence of the allergen."
But all allergic reactions (including your seasonal allergies) occur when the body identifies proteins in the allergen as belonging to an attacking organism, and produces antibodies in response. To put it simply, if ridiculously, there are no proteins in wi-fi signals. So, even if wifi has any unusual effect on this guy, it isn't an allergy.
"I could sit in a clean room for 2 or 3 days after getting really spun up from my tree allergies until the symptoms really begin to diminish."
Of course. Antibodies remain in your blood well after exposure. But if you sat in a clean room until you had no symptoms, then inhaled a vial I gave you, and waited in the clean room to see what happened, you could tell me if the vial contained tree pollen or just something that smelled like it but wasn't. Can this guy do something similar with a box that might be a wifi router or not? I don't know, but a lot of other people have claimed sensitivity to wifi, and none of them have done it, so I'm guessing he can't either.
"He was using irony on that point"
No, he was not. He believes that making the OS open source is actually a bad thing. Because it could lead to less consistent APIs if/when phones are running multiple different quirky forks. He may be correct, as far as his narrow, personal interests as an application developer are concerned over some short-term time frame at some possible point in the future. If he truly believes, as I do, that the benefits of making it open source outweigh this, he makes no indication of that in the article.
Actually, the paperback book market doesn't even print whatever comes across it's desk. You're thinking of the print-on-demand market, which is a different animal entirely.
No, I am not. I am "thinking of", which is to say, directly referring to, publishers of bestseller paperbacks like The Bible Code. These are not any different from print-on-demand in the only aspect relevant here: the level of scientific rigor they demand of their authors, as compared to Nature.
I don't know if you misunderstood, but when I said "Nature does not tend to print whatever comes across it's desk." I was referring to Nature, the preeminent peer-reviewed scientific journal in the world, which published the paper we are discussing.
Given this, I am going to assume that if this paper has flaws, they are not rank amateur ones, spotable by any random slashdot poster who hasn't read the fine article, let alone the actual paper.
Touchstone, publisher of the paperback edition of The Bible Code, (available in discount bins everywhere) does not have a similar history of rigorous standards, and thus earns no such assumption.
So if you've read the paper, and think you still have a valid objection, let me know. Better yet, write it up and send it to Nature. Unless you're really a molecular biologist, and actually have the goods; then send it to Science, because I've got a friend that works there and now I owe her for having called Nature "preeminent".
Slashdot Mirror
"Communication lag and inflexibility."
Getting there and not dying.
"If you instruct your robot to go 2 meters forward, and then wait 40 minutes at least, just t check if it got stuck or everything is fine, you're not going to do much science in a year."
So if your theory is correct, humans exploring Mars directly should get lots more done in a year than humans exploring via remote probes. Well, let's check the scoreboard! Hmmm, what year did you have in mind? The last several all seem to say "Humans with probes: lots. Humans going there: squat".
"Communication lag and inflexibility. That's why humans can do much, much more (like many orders of magnitude more) than any currently imaginable robot. Communication lag and inflexibility."
Getting there and not dying. That's why humans with probes can do much, much more (like, infinity times more) than any currently actual humans with space suits. Getting there and not dying.
"Because what the Rovers have accomplished in [roughly] 4000 rover days could have been done in [roughly] 20 man days and probably done better to boot."
Rovers haven't acomplished squat. Humans using rovers to manage the difficulties of space have accomplished quite a lot. Humans using spacesuits to do so have spent a lot more money, to much less effect.
Your argument would suggest exploration by humans who go there is much more effective than exploration by humans who operate remote probes. So why have the humans who operate remote probes accomplished lots of exploration on Mars with a tiny fraction of the budget of the humans who go there, who are skimming the atmosphere exploring a can they built?
In deciding humans who go there are a better way to solve the problem, you are ignoring the difficulty of getting there and remaining operational. Well, here's a hint: Getting there and remaining operational is the entire problem. Nothing about exploring Mars is tricky in the least besides getting there and not dying. The solution that makes it easiest to get to Mars and do stuff is the best one, because that's the problem. Remote probes are a better way to get to Mars and do stuff.
Saying a human with a shovel would dig a hole on Mars faster than a slow rover with a wimpy little scoop is stupid; a hundred-ton backhoe is obviously the way to go if you don't care about the cost of getting there. Wait... I'm not sure of the rules, does he get to use a shovel, or do only bare hands count as actual digging? This no-using-the-right tools thing doesn't make sense to me.
"In practice, the missions are almost always one shots, if a probe is lost it's game over for that mission"
So then you do another mission. And after a thousand or so, you'll have used up the budget and time required for a manned mission. We've lost some probes; we've sent more. No biggie, and we're getting results. Meanwhile, at fantastic expense, I hear the ISS guys managed to get their toilet working again, and have high hopes it will keep going for a few more years until we get tired of paying and the whole thing slips from "barely beyond the atmosphere" into burning up.
"If I understand Android correctly",
You don't.
"you still need to buy the apps through a central Android store."
False. The rest of your misapprehensions appear to stem from this one. Anyone can write apps for Android, and anyone can install them, with out the involvement of a third party. Refusing to support music from Apple would not be possible because anyone could write an app that did. That's ignoring the fact that "music from Apple" means "mp3".
Well, I disagree with your reading of the argument.
"I'm not interested in an iWhatever because..." is not an argument, it's trivia. Nobody should be expected to care why one particular person wants one or not.
The point is "You should not buy an iWhatever because..." The argument is that if the model embraced by Apple becomes dominant, the world will be a less wonderful place than if it does not.
Saying Apple is unjust to make such a product is absurd, sure. But it is a different thing to suggest consumers ought to consider what business models they are encouraging, and that they might conclude not buying this was a righteous action.
The argument "This is bad for the world, you should not buy it.", made to consumers, is not inherently absurd. You may or may not agree. You may wish to engage that argument or to ignore it. But you can't reasonably dismiss it by telling me not to buy one; nor by telling me Apple has the right to make it. Those are non sequitur responses to to the suggestion being made: You should not buy one.
"Where's the evidence for that? People manage to ride bikes with panniers loaded with cargo."
Yes, people do. Me, for example. My evidence is not a detailed research study; I'm just relating my opinion, based on my experience. I periodically ride with 50 lbs aboard, so I know what that's like and it is on that basis that I judge how much benefit I'm going to want to get from that and conclude this thing isn't worth it.
"And the idea is to assist, so you can't compare it to the range and efficiency of a Segway or an electric scooter. Why does it need to have the same range of an electric scooter, anyway?"
It doesn't have to. But it costs the same as an electric scooter, so if it doesn't it ought to offer some other compelling advantage over the scooter. I do not perceive that advantage.
"Doesn't that depend upon how a person plans to use it, how far they need to travel?"
Maybe. The appropriateness of any vehicle depends on intended use, desired range and speed, budget, etc. It is my contention that the set of parameters that make this a more desirable option than an electric scooter or bicycle is a a very small set, possibly empty.
What way to use it and distance of travel to you imagine makes this a better choice than the alternatives?
"You do not need to buy an Apple product"
Yes. And this article, and the poster you reply to, are encouraging people to not buy an Apple product. 'Just don't buy it' is not a rebuttal of the argument, it is the conclusion being argued for.
"If a manufacturer decides to encrypt that, or use specialized error codes, and only give the key to 'authorized dealers,' all of a sudden any non-authorized mechanic is in for a world of additional difficulty"
In fact, manufacturers have done exactly that, been sued, and lost. Keeping those error codes secret is not legal in the US.
"I'm sorry, I'm Canadian."
Your mileage may vary.
"And why isn't the middle ground between a scooter and a bike very useful, exactly?"
If the vehicle has enough propulsion from the motor to bother with, it's too heavy to want to ride it when the battery is dead. If you're not going to ride it when the battery is dead, you may as well put on more battery to get better speed and range. The battery-powered vehicles you mention are much heavier than anything you want to pedal. The Segway is pretty marginal in terms of speed/range for general transportation yet still weighs 75-100 lbs. A 50 lb. electric bike will have a tiny fraction of the speed/range of a full-scale electric scooter, but is still too heavy to pedal any distance with a dead battery.
The bike shops I frequent all have 10K bikes on the wall too. But that's not the same as "stocking" or "moving". At Mellow Johnnys, the 10K bike would be the very "10 in the world" one I mentioned, built for a sponsored racer to use in the Tour.
The highest-end bikes "stocked" (several of each size) at a shop I frequent would be a Cervelo P4 at Excel Sports for 5K, but without wheels, so add in some top-end Zipp discs and you can get to 10k that way. But they're a national mail-order shop; even in Boulder the local population of elite time-trialists wouldn't justify much inventory at that level.
The fully-built over-10K bike hanging up to be drooled over in your local high-end shop isn't there to be purchased. It's there to make you feel thrifty buying a 4K bike.
If someone wants to spend 11K of their own money on a non-custom bike, I won't say they were wrong to do so. But I might say it is quite likely they are being stupid.
Coming back to comparisons with the article, if someone wants to spend $2300 of their own money on a Schwinn Varsity, they are definitely stupid every time. I think the case with the bike/scooter in the article is closer to the Schwinn. Just because 10K bikes exist doesn't mean I can't conclude this $2300 scooter is a bad deal.
"Even if you only capture and re-use half of the energy, it adds up even in a moderately hilly area."
If you can capture and reuse half the energy, apply for a patent immediately. But when you say "The theory is sound" and "it adds up", you are not correct; you have not added it up.
The inefficiency of the system is tangential. Regardless of that, the majority of the energy expended will be lost as air resistance before your system even gets a chance to lose most of the rest of it to inefficiency. I sometimes ride up a mountain near my house. I'm going uphill, at a moderate slope, for 15 miles. If I could capture all the energy from breaking as I descend that would be... pretty much nothing. I don't use the brakes until I get to the very bottom. Air resistance slows me down all I need, and more than I want. Commuter cyclist will need to stop more often than that, but still, the energy bicycle brakes absorb and throw away as heat is not comparable to what goes into the pedals. If it was anywhere close, your bike would melt.
Regenerative breaking will make you drain your batteries down slightly slower than without. If that is enough to be worth the cost is debate-able, at best. But it's absolutely not worth the weight if you're not already carrying batteries and a motor in the first place.
"I agree that Sanyo is doing a terrible job of conveying exactly what the benefit of this thing actually is. I certainly wouldn't pay $2000 for a half-assed electric moped."
The 'benefit' is that you can plug it in; It is a half-assed electric moped. I don't know that they are doing a terrible job of conveying that, so much as that it is not that great.
"They are planning to enter production sometime this year"
They lie.
"but no hard details yet."
No hard details such as how much it weighs. The problems they solve by making it all self contained aren't actually problems. The only real problem with electric bicycles is weight. Making all the weight rotate makes that problem a lot worse. They have extensive slick marketing materials that talk about all sorts of things that are lovely about this wheel, and never mention weight as an issue worth discussing.
Yeah, Bluetooth! Eliminate an ounce or two of wire to control your fifty pound rear wheel. Sounds great. Once they graduate, those guys have a bright future working on the Moller Skycar.
"Can you still pedal a scooter effectively when the battery is flat?"
It weighs Fifty Pounds. When the battery is flat, it's not a good bike. It's not even a really bad bike. When the battery isn't flat, it's not-so-great scooter.
"Besides, they're still new. The price will drop."
Nah, someone comes out with one of these every few years. They don't last long enough for the price to drop any, because they aren't very good vs other options that cost a lot less. I don't see how that will change unless batteries get radically better, which they have not done. The middle ground between being a bike and being a scooter just isn't a very useful place to be.
"I can find a used *car* for that price."
I can confirm that, as I recently sold my car for about that much. I spent the money on a bicycle.
While I don't think I'm an idiot, I don't really disagree with your larger point. The bicycle in question is useless as practical transportation. It has no racks and I wouldn't leave it locked up outside anywhere, assuming I was willing to carry a lock after paying that much for a lightweight bike. The pair of bicycles that had already replaced the car cost maybe $500 combined.
"$2300 is considerably less than what an unmotorized high-end bicycle costs."
Well, I have a bicycle that cost about that, and the people I ride with have ones that cost between that and twice as much. But let's be serious; none of us would consider commuting on these bicycles. I don't have a lock for my road bike because I would never consider leaving it somewhere that one was required.
I commute on a couple of bikes; the nice one is worth maybe $400.
Violet Crown looks like they make lovely bicycles, and I wish them all the luck, but; I've got an extracycle that can do all their bikes can (as it's the same, just kludgeier), and it cost me a heck of alot less. Picking out the best-fitting used mtb frame at the sports consignment store provides a pretty good fit. Certainly not as 'optimal' as a custom build, but come on. It's a cargo bike. 3K? WTF?
"if a $10K conventional bike makes sense for someone (and lots of them do sell!)"
Selling doesn't equal making sense. And "lots" "sell"? The only 10K bike I've heard of was the one stolen from Lance's bike shop, of which it was mentioned "10 exist in the world". If a 10K bike makes sense for you and you don't get it free in an endorsement deal, somethings wrong.
In any case, look at the picture of the electric moped in this article. It is not competing with the latest Cervelo, nor with VioletCrown, nor with Optibike. It's competing with a $400 Electra Townie so $2300 is stupid, or with a $2000 scooter, so its lame performance is stupid.
"No, you still miss the point. The idea is not that you charge up the battery and then take it for a long trip over flat road. It's still a bicycle, not a motorcycle."
It's a motorcycle; you plug it into the wall According to their website, charge time is 3.5 hours.
Regenerative breaking sounds lovely, and that's probably why they include it. But do the math on the efficiency of capturing that energy and storing it, and using it again, and there's no way it's worth 10 pounds, let alone 40.
Any trip someone is realistically going to make on this thing, more of the power is coming out of the wall than their legs. Like most "electric bicycles", this is a pedal-assisted electric moped. If someone would just market them that way, I'd probably think it was cool. But a 50 lb bicycle just sucks.
"If it proves true, then that'll be *very* interesting"
Certainly! Vast realms of physics will be thrown out as we try to understand how photons with a millionth the energy needed to have sucha an effect via known processes can do so depending on the information content of the radio waves.
"If it proves false, like I would blindly guess, then the radiation/EMF/(insert pseudo science here) absorbing crystal industry is going to plummet!"
If it proves false, (as I would confidently conclude on the basis of mountains of excellent evidence) I don't expect the various snake oil industries will take any more notice than they have every other time.
I understand you are critiquing the Cowards spelling, but it is worth noting that he is incorrect factually as well. The condition the other poster ascribes to his mother in law is an actual one.
"I seriously doubt that WiFi radiation could do the same thing"
As you should. Sunlight includes frequencies of light (particularly ultra-violet) whose photons have enough energy to break chemical bonds, including those in your mother in laws skin that cause the problem. "Wifi radiation" is radio waves, which have radically lower frequencies. The energy of those photons is a millionth of what would be required to cause a problem.
And, of course, radio-frequency waves are all over the place, constantly swamping this guys body all the time. Unless his body synthesizes the wrong proteins based on the informational content of the waves, he's wrong about the cause of his symptoms.
"I don't see a problem with using 'allergy' as a short-hand for 'negative physiological reaction' in this kind of case."
I do see a problem with it. My daughter has serious, actual allergies to certain foods. I'm sensitive to people using "allergy" to mean various things that it doesn't, because it leads to people not taking allergies seriously; Which could kill my daughter.
I agree that the legitimacy of this guys grievance does not depend on whether we incorrectly call it "allergy" or not. So let's not.
"Many allergic reactions (like my own seasonal allergies) don't come and go like a light switch in the presence or absence of the allergen."
But all allergic reactions (including your seasonal allergies) occur when the body identifies proteins in the allergen as belonging to an attacking organism, and produces antibodies in response. To put it simply, if ridiculously, there are no proteins in wi-fi signals. So, even if wifi has any unusual effect on this guy, it isn't an allergy.
"I could sit in a clean room for 2 or 3 days after getting really spun up from my tree allergies until the symptoms really begin to diminish."
Of course. Antibodies remain in your blood well after exposure. But if you sat in a clean room until you had no symptoms, then inhaled a vial I gave you, and waited in the clean room to see what happened, you could tell me if the vial contained tree pollen or just something that smelled like it but wasn't. Can this guy do something similar with a box that might be a wifi router or not? I don't know, but a lot of other people have claimed sensitivity to wifi, and none of them have done it, so I'm guessing he can't either.
If only there were an article in which he listed them.
"He was using irony on that point" No, he was not. He believes that making the OS open source is actually a bad thing. Because it could lead to less consistent APIs if/when phones are running multiple different quirky forks. He may be correct, as far as his narrow, personal interests as an application developer are concerned over some short-term time frame at some possible point in the future. If he truly believes, as I do, that the benefits of making it open source outweigh this, he makes no indication of that in the article.
Actually, the paperback book market doesn't even print whatever comes across it's desk. You're thinking of the print-on-demand market, which is a different animal entirely.
No, I am not. I am "thinking of", which is to say, directly referring to, publishers of bestseller paperbacks like The Bible Code. These are not any different from print-on-demand in the only aspect relevant here: the level of scientific rigor they demand of their authors, as compared to Nature.
I don't know if you misunderstood, but when I said "Nature does not tend to print whatever comes across it's desk." I was referring to Nature, the preeminent peer-reviewed scientific journal in the world, which published the paper we are discussing.
Given this, I am going to assume that if this paper has flaws, they are not rank amateur ones, spotable by any random slashdot poster who hasn't read the fine article, let alone the actual paper.
Touchstone, publisher of the paperback edition of The Bible Code, (available in discount bins everywhere) does not have a similar history of rigorous standards, and thus earns no such assumption.
So if you've read the paper, and think you still have a valid objection, let me know. Better yet, write it up and send it to Nature. Unless you're really a molecular biologist, and actually have the goods; then send it to Science, because I've got a friend that works there and now I owe her for having called Nature "preeminent".
Huh?
Yes, Harper Collins published a Palin book. (In hardcover, but they are part of what I was denigrating as "the paperback book market",)
_Nature_, the eminent scientific journal that published the paper in question, has not published a Palin book I am aware of.