It's got everything to do with FB, because it's a corporation (=evil, plus they are American =extra evil) with deep pockets. The bullies are teenagers themselves; there's not a whole lot the parents are going to get out of them in terms of money or a morally satisfying punishment. So they turn to the next target that'll give them the most satisfction.
Yes, good developers are hard to find. Ditto good sysadmins, business analysts, project managers, architects, etc. In larger corporations there's a strong movement to work around that scarcity by compartimentalizing the jobs, turning the whole into an assembly line, also because good people are not only hard to find but harder to manage as well. Not that the people themselves are difficult, but in most cases a group of excellent people will not have a uniform set of skills, so making the most of them requires individual talent management and more complex work planning.
What they end up with is sometimes called "predictable mediocrity". Just like having a mechanical assembly line, you'll have more control, easier planning and a predictable quality, at the expense of flexibility, innovation, sometimes cost, and excellence (your quality will be more predictable but I've rarely seen the average go up or even remain the same). What is also does is breed excellence out of the workplace: experts will be too expensive, they will not enjoy the nature of the work, and you will find it hard to offer a viable career path to talented workers. So I expect real talent to become even scarcer and more expensive.
[...]yet his company is pushing a product to make everyone Google's Drone. [...]
Either that or remove the camera. 95% of everything Glass was designed to do can be done without the camera.
Making us into Google's drones is part of the design.
But you're kind of right: I was worried when I learned that Google would be doing the first mass market "AR" device, and disappointed that it doesn't really do AR; it just provides a camera, HUD, and notifications. And presumably collects data for Google while sending us ads.
A real AR device under control of the user would be able to blank out ads in billboards etc, or replace them with pleasant pictures... now there's a nice application.
It's the dot.com 3.0 race (which was already a somewhat popular business model in other sectors): instead of growing your own company from within, you just purchase other smaller but successful (or popular) companies. And yes, it's still all about "eyeballs".
1) Buy a popular service
2) Add your own flavour of personalized promotions (= more stinkin' ads), or harvest the crap out of your visitors' data.
3) Profit! (perhaps... in Yahoo's case I am doubtful).
Personally I am a bit sick of these online services moving towards a revenue model that is business-to-business: ads and data mining. I'd much prefer a customer centric service, where the visitor himself is the prime source of revenue. Or a combination: offer a free service that includes ads and your personal details being sold, and a premium service with no ads and some privacy. You know, something like the Pirate Bay, but with money going to the people who created the content.
Just wondering... How is it possible to add a surcharge on top of the contractually agreed charges? If it's not in the contract, then why pay? And if the contract stipulates that AT&T can add whatever surcharge they like, why are customers complaining?
True, and it's a valid concern. I'm not about to trust my hands to these printed guns... yet. The design for such guns will improve, as will the quality and strength of 3d printed stuff in general; I think it's very likely that a design will come along that is safe and reliable enough to trust as a single-shot weapon.
By the way, if I didn't want people to have these guns, that is exactly what I'd be telling people publicly: "This gun is likely to explode in you hand, killing you, your wife, your kids and your dog. And it will kill random kittens around the neighbourhood as well."
Or sell a generator to a legitimate client, and see if they can draw a continuous 1MW from it over a long period of time. I'll lay good money on the claim that this "customer" is a pal of Rossi.
Those numbers aren't truly random and cryptanalysis can be applied to them. Especially if the attacker knows you're using the Yellow Pages (security through obscurity).
Public transport, then? Not a viable alternative in many cases, like if you have to move a lot of stuff. On my current commute, going by car offers a better travel time during rush hour, even in NL with its dense and efficient public transport network.
I have better hopes for self-driving cars. It'll be a while before a completely autonomous vehicle becomes an everyday reality, but parts of that self-driving stuff is viable today and some of it will already be present in upcoming Volvo / BMW models IIRC. It won't be long until we'll have many cars that can reliably keep to a lane and maintain a safe distance to the guy in front. If there are enough of these... imagine opening up a special diamond lane for these cars, and letting them go 150km/h bumper to bumper there. That's first class, door-to-door "public transport" that lets you go your own way when you need to.
Depends on where you live. In NL and some other Euro countries, almost all fixed-interest mortgages have such a penalty (usually applied to repayments in excess of 10% of the loan, per annum). Variable-interest mortgages do not have a penalty (by law, if I'm not mistaken).
It would appear that most people wanting a gun can get one
In the USA this seems to be the case. Outside the USA (western Europe)? I know of no one who would want to arm themselves to defend against tyranny, but I know many people who would get a gun for home or personal defense if they were allowed to have one. But over here, by law I cannot get one for that purpose. I have a license for firearms but that's strictly for hunting or sports; if I were to use it in self defense, the judge might well rule its use justified, but my license would almost certainly be revoked.
Those quadcopter things are fairly reliable. There's even designs out there for 6 or 8 redundant rotors. These things can survive a fairly hard landing especially if the rotors are shrouded, whereas a helicopter is a lot more damage-prone. A running helicopter that falls on its side will most likely need some serious repair work before it'll fly again. A damaged quadcopter can be fixed with duct tape in most cases.
Is this a gun, as in a fully functional and useful tool? No. But it's not proof of any kind that 3d guns are impractical in principle (as that Register article claims); quite the contrary. The Liberator proved that it's possible to print a gun that can be fired (unreliably) on a printer, without blowing up. The Lulz version proves it is possible to create one that can be fired repeatedly, and can be created on a consumer grade printer. From here on in the reliability will improve, and perhaps someone will come up with a double barreled one or a six-shooter even.
This development is not interesting for gun enthusiasts. It may be interesting for people who need to smuggle a gun past security (you still need to get the metal parts + cartridges through the detector). It's not that interesting for people with the skills, tools and smarts to build their own gun, nor is it for criminals who can (in most countries) quite simply acquire a gun from an illegal source. But it is very interesting for people who want to acquire a gun illegally, not necessarily because they want to use it for criminal purposes, but in case they want one to defend themselves but the gov't doesn't let them have one.
And for that purpose, you wouldn't really need something that can reliably fire 10.000 rounds. 6 reliable shots would already be a vast improvement over nothing at all. And given the progress already made on these printers, I'd say that printing and assembling such a gun by anyone may well be viable in a few years.
Despite it no longer being a "3d printed gun", it would still be a game changer in the sense that this would be a functional multi-shot gun that can be manufactured by pretty much anyone with access to a crappy consumer-grade printer, without requiring any gunsmithing, metal working or other mechanical skills. If you can assemble a simple Lego kit, you can put together such a gun.
Wow, I'd like a 35% tax rate; ours in NL starts at around that percentage, and goes up to 52%... with that upper bracket kicking in real fast at around €55.000 taxable income. Then there's 21% VAT, municipal taxes (increasing faster than our significant yearly inflation), road tax and the tax on petrol (2/3rds of the price at the pump is tax), the list goes on... Kind of sucks though that here the same thing applies to businesses as well: the large ones can negotiate a low rate, the small ones get stiffed. My business gets taxed at 20%, and on what I take out I pay an additional 25% dividend tax. The big guys? They pay little, it's for good reason that so many international corporations set up their Euro HQ in the Netherlands. And guys like Bono (U2) are doing the same thing.
I suppose it is the same all over: poor people or businesses have little money to tax, and the rich/large ones make sure their interests are mobile: tax them too much and they'll up and leave. It's the ones in the middle who get screwed.
I feel the same way about other reboots as well. Like Batman and Bond. The new ones are good movies in their own right, but they are not real Batman or 007 movies, with a campy, over the top superhero or a politically incorrect, suave secret agent.
I'm not suggesting that we do away with these safety nets. It's about striking a good balance. You want companies to pay taxes and not be able to fire people on a whim. But those companies also need some flexibility in their labour force, and security against the financial risks that come with these safety nets. Place too large a burden on companies, and they may up and leave or go out of business. But indulge them just to keep them in your country, and you'll start a race to the social security bottom.
I like the social security we have in my country (NL). But we could do with more flexible labour laws.
Those social protections are part of the problem, or rather, the way some countries implement them. In some EU countries, government has pushed the cost and risk of social measus to employers. An employee falls ill or is injured? Company is obliged to pay for their wages, sometimes for over a year. Need to fire someone? You can't, or you spend a goodly sum getting rid of him/her. Or you have someone off on maternity leave, with the obligation to keep paying her wages, just a few weeks after she joined the company. Yes, it happens, and by law you cannot refuse someone on that ground or even ask about it in a job interview.
That's all fine and dandy for the worker, and for corporations who can easily absorb the average costs incurred in a large group of employees. But in small startups, having to pay a worker who is unproductive one way or another for a long period of time can kill the company. You can insure against that, but the premiums are unbelievable.
So what? No one is asking you to kiss his backside because of his good deeds. If his cash helps find a cure for his disease, good for him, and we'll benefit as well. Better than spending it on another butt-ugly yacht.
Slashdot Mirror
It's got everything to do with FB, because it's a corporation (=evil, plus they are American =extra evil) with deep pockets. The bullies are teenagers themselves; there's not a whole lot the parents are going to get out of them in terms of money or a morally satisfying punishment. So they turn to the next target that'll give them the most satisfction.
Yes, good developers are hard to find. Ditto good sysadmins, business analysts, project managers, architects, etc. In larger corporations there's a strong movement to work around that scarcity by compartimentalizing the jobs, turning the whole into an assembly line, also because good people are not only hard to find but harder to manage as well. Not that the people themselves are difficult, but in most cases a group of excellent people will not have a uniform set of skills, so making the most of them requires individual talent management and more complex work planning.
What they end up with is sometimes called "predictable mediocrity". Just like having a mechanical assembly line, you'll have more control, easier planning and a predictable quality, at the expense of flexibility, innovation, sometimes cost, and excellence (your quality will be more predictable but I've rarely seen the average go up or even remain the same). What is also does is breed excellence out of the workplace: experts will be too expensive, they will not enjoy the nature of the work, and you will find it hard to offer a viable career path to talented workers. So I expect real talent to become even scarcer and more expensive.
I'm hoping the Chinese will actually build the F35 and iron out the numerous kinks. We can then steal back a working design for that aircraft.
[...]yet his company is pushing a product to make everyone Google's Drone.
[...]
Either that or remove the camera. 95% of everything Glass was designed to do can be done without the camera.
Making us into Google's drones is part of the design.
But you're kind of right: I was worried when I learned that Google would be doing the first mass market "AR" device, and disappointed that it doesn't really do AR; it just provides a camera, HUD, and notifications. And presumably collects data for Google while sending us ads.
A real AR device under control of the user would be able to blank out ads in billboards etc, or replace them with pleasant pictures... now there's a nice application.
It's the dot.com 3.0 race (which was already a somewhat popular business model in other sectors): instead of growing your own company from within, you just purchase other smaller but successful (or popular) companies. And yes, it's still all about "eyeballs".
1) Buy a popular service
2) Add your own flavour of personalized promotions (= more stinkin' ads), or harvest the crap out of your visitors' data.
3) Profit! (perhaps... in Yahoo's case I am doubtful).
Personally I am a bit sick of these online services moving towards a revenue model that is business-to-business: ads and data mining. I'd much prefer a customer centric service, where the visitor himself is the prime source of revenue. Or a combination: offer a free service that includes ads and your personal details being sold, and a premium service with no ads and some privacy. You know, something like the Pirate Bay, but with money going to the people who created the content.
Just wondering... How is it possible to add a surcharge on top of the contractually agreed charges? If it's not in the contract, then why pay? And if the contract stipulates that AT&T can add whatever surcharge they like, why are customers complaining?
True, and it's a valid concern. I'm not about to trust my hands to these printed guns... yet. The design for such guns will improve, as will the quality and strength of 3d printed stuff in general; I think it's very likely that a design will come along that is safe and reliable enough to trust as a single-shot weapon.
By the way, if I didn't want people to have these guns, that is exactly what I'd be telling people publicly: "This gun is likely to explode in you hand, killing you, your wife, your kids and your dog. And it will kill random kittens around the neighbourhood as well."
Or sell a generator to a legitimate client, and see if they can draw a continuous 1MW from it over a long period of time. I'll lay good money on the claim that this "customer" is a pal of Rossi.
Those numbers aren't truly random and cryptanalysis can be applied to them. Especially if the attacker knows you're using the Yellow Pages (security through obscurity).
All she does is sneak into his hotel room when he's asleep, generate his pad using his crystal and make a copy of it.
Sounds like a metaphor for something kinky...
Public transport, then? Not a viable alternative in many cases, like if you have to move a lot of stuff. On my current commute, going by car offers a better travel time during rush hour, even in NL with its dense and efficient public transport network.
I have better hopes for self-driving cars. It'll be a while before a completely autonomous vehicle becomes an everyday reality, but parts of that self-driving stuff is viable today and some of it will already be present in upcoming Volvo / BMW models IIRC. It won't be long until we'll have many cars that can reliably keep to a lane and maintain a safe distance to the guy in front. If there are enough of these... imagine opening up a special diamond lane for these cars, and letting them go 150km/h bumper to bumper there. That's first class, door-to-door "public transport" that lets you go your own way when you need to.
That is why god created the annual MOT (car inspection).
Depends on where you live. In NL and some other Euro countries, almost all fixed-interest mortgages have such a penalty (usually applied to repayments in excess of 10% of the loan, per annum). Variable-interest mortgages do not have a penalty (by law, if I'm not mistaken).
It would appear that most people wanting a gun can get one
In the USA this seems to be the case. Outside the USA (western Europe)? I know of no one who would want to arm themselves to defend against tyranny, but I know many people who would get a gun for home or personal defense if they were allowed to have one. But over here, by law I cannot get one for that purpose. I have a license for firearms but that's strictly for hunting or sports; if I were to use it in self defense, the judge might well rule its use justified, but my license would almost certainly be revoked.
Those quadcopter things are fairly reliable. There's even designs out there for 6 or 8 redundant rotors. These things can survive a fairly hard landing especially if the rotors are shrouded, whereas a helicopter is a lot more damage-prone. A running helicopter that falls on its side will most likely need some serious repair work before it'll fly again. A damaged quadcopter can be fixed with duct tape in most cases.
They exist. If I recall correctly, Model Airplane News even published plans for a fairly hefty gas-powered one (might have been another magazine).
Is this a gun, as in a fully functional and useful tool? No. But it's not proof of any kind that 3d guns are impractical in principle (as that Register article claims); quite the contrary. The Liberator proved that it's possible to print a gun that can be fired (unreliably) on a printer, without blowing up. The Lulz version proves it is possible to create one that can be fired repeatedly, and can be created on a consumer grade printer. From here on in the reliability will improve, and perhaps someone will come up with a double barreled one or a six-shooter even.
This development is not interesting for gun enthusiasts. It may be interesting for people who need to smuggle a gun past security (you still need to get the metal parts + cartridges through the detector). It's not that interesting for people with the skills, tools and smarts to build their own gun, nor is it for criminals who can (in most countries) quite simply acquire a gun from an illegal source. But it is very interesting for people who want to acquire a gun illegally, not necessarily because they want to use it for criminal purposes, but in case they want one to defend themselves but the gov't doesn't let them have one.
And for that purpose, you wouldn't really need something that can reliably fire 10.000 rounds. 6 reliable shots would already be a vast improvement over nothing at all. And given the progress already made on these printers, I'd say that printing and assembling such a gun by anyone may well be viable in a few years.
Despite it no longer being a "3d printed gun", it would still be a game changer in the sense that this would be a functional multi-shot gun that can be manufactured by pretty much anyone with access to a crappy consumer-grade printer, without requiring any gunsmithing, metal working or other mechanical skills. If you can assemble a simple Lego kit, you can put together such a gun.
Wow, I'd like a 35% tax rate; ours in NL starts at around that percentage, and goes up to 52%... with that upper bracket kicking in real fast at around €55.000 taxable income. Then there's 21% VAT, municipal taxes (increasing faster than our significant yearly inflation), road tax and the tax on petrol (2/3rds of the price at the pump is tax), the list goes on... Kind of sucks though that here the same thing applies to businesses as well: the large ones can negotiate a low rate, the small ones get stiffed. My business gets taxed at 20%, and on what I take out I pay an additional 25% dividend tax. The big guys? They pay little, it's for good reason that so many international corporations set up their Euro HQ in the Netherlands. And guys like Bono (U2) are doing the same thing.
I suppose it is the same all over: poor people or businesses have little money to tax, and the rich/large ones make sure their interests are mobile: tax them too much and they'll up and leave. It's the ones in the middle who get screwed.
I feel the same way about other reboots as well. Like Batman and Bond. The new ones are good movies in their own right, but they are not real Batman or 007 movies, with a campy, over the top superhero or a politically incorrect, suave secret agent.
Wolfram Alpha converts 45cm/h to 0.7516 furlongs per fortnight. You're welcome.
2 weeks is nice. In the Netherlands it is up to 2 years.
I'm not suggesting that we do away with these safety nets. It's about striking a good balance. You want companies to pay taxes and not be able to fire people on a whim. But those companies also need some flexibility in their labour force, and security against the financial risks that come with these safety nets. Place too large a burden on companies, and they may up and leave or go out of business. But indulge them just to keep them in your country, and you'll start a race to the social security bottom.
I like the social security we have in my country (NL). But we could do with more flexible labour laws.
Those social protections are part of the problem, or rather, the way some countries implement them. In some EU countries, government has pushed the cost and risk of social measus to employers. An employee falls ill or is injured? Company is obliged to pay for their wages, sometimes for over a year. Need to fire someone? You can't, or you spend a goodly sum getting rid of him/her. Or you have someone off on maternity leave, with the obligation to keep paying her wages, just a few weeks after she joined the company. Yes, it happens, and by law you cannot refuse someone on that ground or even ask about it in a job interview.
That's all fine and dandy for the worker, and for corporations who can easily absorb the average costs incurred in a large group of employees. But in small startups, having to pay a worker who is unproductive one way or another for a long period of time can kill the company. You can insure against that, but the premiums are unbelievable.
So what? No one is asking you to kiss his backside because of his good deeds. If his cash helps find a cure for his disease, good for him, and we'll benefit as well. Better than spending it on another butt-ugly yacht.