In a nutshell the grandmother can provide additional food resources to the weaned children of her child or her childrens mates (to increase their fertility) since she no longer has to provide those resources to her direct children and can produce excess to what she consumes.
Interesting addendum: it is now firmly established that this sort of support or its modern equivalents are stronger from maternal than from paternal grandmothers.
The reason is that paternal grandmothers cannot be 100% sure that the grandchild is really theirs. In most societies genetic testing reveals that 5-10% of all people are not the biological child of the person they believe is their real father.
First of all, let's think about Electrolux' objectives. It is not to make a robot that cleans 100% well. The goal is to get a robot that works reasonably well at a reasonable price.
I think they have reached the works reasonably well part, but not the price part.
Now is not the time to add an extra "crack-and-crevice tool that pokes out". Now is the time to work on cutting costs in production, and reaching a bigger market.
Of course, if it were as simple as a superficial change of shape to reach corners, I would agree with you completely. But I suspect that it is more complex than that. The simplest way to design these things is probably to have one suction point in the center. If that is the case, then circular shape is actually better than square.
The only way you can get the benefit out of a square design is if the suction point is actually at a corner (or sticks out in some direction). But such a design is much more complicated; and so will it be to program movement patterns for the thing.
Tor
Re:Minimize coins in pocket
on
Making Change
·
· Score: 1
Also, this is probably the most nit-picky post in my history of posting. God help us all.
This has to be challenged. : )
I think merchant's typically need coin, because most customers just give big bills and expect change. Thus they typically pay to get rolls from the banks.
Getting some extra coin from customers will make them have to do so less often and is thus beneficial. As long, of course, as it does not result in a net production as in your bank - but I don't think this is typical for most merchants.
Minimize coins in pocket
on
Making Change
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
It seems like the objective here was to minimize coin exchange. Ususally I try to minimize the number of coins in my pocket.
If something costs 77c I give them 1.02 - and get a quarter back. In the US, the tellers stare at me blankly, but then dutifylly enter the amount I give them - and then smile in amazement at the simplicity of the exchange.
In Japan, it is almost the other way around. The tellers come up with the most creative combinations that minimize my number of coins (and maximize theirs - this is in both of our interest).
I heard a lecture from the CEO of Electrolux when this was in development five years ago, this is what he told us.
You are absolutely right about the reaching corners part. But apparently, they had done tests with people vacuuming and found that most people miss patches here and there. Thus while the robot does miss corners, it has slightly higher covering percentage overall.
the CEO of Electrolux (Michael Trechov) visited my engineering school in Sweden and told us about this new cool product - the robot vacuum cleaner. He was using a prototype at home.
I wonder what took them so long to go to market...
It also discusses how the meme was extinguished by the college administration.
I wonder when the other religous memes will be extinguished... it will probably be a while though, since listening to and absorbing everything your parents say is one of the key characteristics that have made humans so successful.
I hope soon, then we would not have to suffer through things like 9/11, or the terrors in Northern Ireland.
Tor
Correction
on
Mighty Amazon
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Fortune reports that the patent-pending practice of selling partners' used and new goods next to Amazon's own...
No. If you read the Fortune article, or the patent itself, you will see that this is not the case.
The patent covers the specific feature of pre-orders, e.g., allowing buyers to set up requests for used products.
It does not cover the basic idea of selling used goods next to the new. This is hardly patentable, because it does not pass the basic criterium for being patentable - it is not new!
In order for something to be patentable, it must (at least) be
New. Exhaling is not new, so it does not pass.
Unobvious. Whether somthing is unobvious or not is frequently a matter of great debate and difficult to judge. The most controversial cases like "one click shopping" are the ones that hit mainstream media.
On the back I can still read that we trust in God. Well, I am not so sure I share these supersitious beliefs. Does that mean that I am not an American or that I should not use the bill?
Tor
In order to start a fusion reaction, you must reach these incredible temperatures.
For H-bombs, the idea is to use a fisson bomb to kick-start the whole thing.
Now they are trying to build fusion reactors, and obviously using fission power is not that popular (the whole point is to get rid of the problems of fission).
Using extremely powerful and focused lasers seems to be the best idea as yet. This is only needed to start the reaction, once it has started it is kept alive by its own power and a supply of hydrogen.
It might be useful for a e-book sort of thing, where it's unlikely you'll be reading faster than four pages a second.
This is unlikely. The main reason why ebooks have failed so miserably is not that current versions are too thick, but rather that they are simply uncomfortable to look at for long periods of time.
What is needed for ebooks is very high resolutions and frequencies, or some e-ink like technology that is based on reflecting light rahter than emitting it.
For the same reason, I don't believe this technology will work for newspapers.
How do light bulbs work? True, they burn as a side effect of being heated, but you apply electricity, and you [eventually] get light. Then there's the the whole laser thing... Florcent tubes?
Well, any light form needs energy - and electricity is a common way of providing this.
Light bulbs emit light because they are heated by electricity. Unfourtunately, about 95% of the light emitted is not visible to humans, and thus wasted (human eyes are tuned to best view light from a certain body at about 6000 degrees, and this is much hotter than the light bulb - thus the inefficiency).
There are, however, ways to convert electricity to light without heating anything. LEDs do this - all energy is converted to light of a single certain frequency - which we can see. This is true for lasers also, but they go even further by not only having light of a single frequency but also aligning the light waves that compose the light.
But both light bulbs and LEDs are made of big crystals of metal / silicon (as opposed to molecules). What is new here is the atomic structure of the of the light emitting material; it is nanotubes which technically are big molecules. This is a major discovery - although it is probably too early to tell exactly what it will be useful for in the future.
It seems to me as the main advantage of newspapers printed on papers is that it is much more comfortable to look at than a computer screen. It is also more comfortable to read in a favourite chair.
I can't imagine that large portions of the population will be willing to give these comforts up for less than a buck a day.
Of course, one day ultra-light laptops with revolutionary, easy-on-the-eyes screens may be commonplace; but until then I would not count out the printing press.
Isn't it a little risky to put location transponders on all your military units? If the enemy cracks your transponder codes, they can easily target you.
Similar concerns can be raised about almost any military technology or activity. Don't use radio - the enemy might hear what you say! Don't use radar - the enemy will know where you are! Don't open fire - you will reveal your position!
Military winners are willing to take such risks in pursuing their objectives. They know that being aware of the situation and acting proactivly and agressively is more important than never revealing anything to the enemy. There are of course circumstances where one should be stealthy, but wars are not won by armies remaining completely hidden in cover.
In my engineering school there was this story about a guy in the CS department who had been "living" in front of one of the workstations for years.
On one occasion, he was helping some newbie with something; and he allowed the guy to log into his account. Naively, the newbie asked for the password across the room; everyone else in the computer center listened up expecting a refusal.
But instead, this CS guy just started to tell his password "j3Y9_fg..." loudly; the newbie started to type. But the password just kept comming; it was up towards 50 completely random characters long!
It turned out that the system insisted on a changed password every month; but the default selection was the old password. Rather than coming up with something new every month, this guy had just added one more character every time. Of course, it is not too hard to memorize one more character per month month either.
Many posts correctly point out that these discounts are designed so that many who intend to send them in never bother/ succeed. But there is actually a more subtle reason as well; the same reason that supermarkets use coupons (as opposed to just lowering the price).
That reason is price differentiation. If the company charges a high price, they sell few units at a high margin; a low price means more units a lower margin. By introducing these coupon schemes, they can charge different prices for the same product. Price-sensitive customers go through the trouble of filling in the coupons, insensitive ones don't. It is the best of both worlds!
Another example of price differentiation is university tuition. There it is called "financial aid" - a scheme clearly designed to make everyone pay exactly what they can afford (note: I am not saying that there is something wrong with financial aid; I am just pointing out that it is very much in the financial interest of the universities).
GW used to be a much different organization. As they became bigger and bigger, it seems like they really lost touch with the gamers, and they kept targetting a younger and younger crowd. I mean, if you can, get your hands on a copy of "Rogue Trader" -- and then compare the feel of the rules to the ones from the latest edition of WH40k. They've added more models, and yeah, they're better models, but it feels like they've surrounded them in a web of dense, arbitrary rules.
I agree with everything, except the rules part. They have turned the game from a sort of "big RPG battles" to "streamlined massive warfare". The rules these days are much better to run massive battles.
Of course, this is very much in their interest, as it encourages people to buy lots of models. In general, you hear a lot of complaints about their prices. But let's face it; they are making some great games and they have every right to charge what they want for their products. If you don't like it, buy some other game (there are competitors, but none as good).
I am, however, starting to change my mind when I read about this. It is one thing charging for your products, it is another intimidating and constraining retailers. It also illegal in many countries.
There are a lot of highly moderated posts making the point that if we don't research this, then somebody else will.
Well, if you RTFA, you will see that it is not so much concerned about technologies that can be used as powerful weapons, etc. Rather it cites experiments that in themselves are so dangerous that they could destroy the planet, by for example creating black wholes or nano-machines that replicate out of hand.
If these were feasible (personally I doubt it) then the conclusions drawn make a lot of sense. It is does not make us much good if we are the inventors of the nano-robot that ate the world. If such risks exists (again, I don't think they do) we must work to stop the experiments, on a global scale.
If research is truly dangerous then classify it. But not to research it only leaves you behind when other nations research it.
I think the point was that certain experiments are so dangerous that they could destroy the whole planet if they go wrong.
Then it does not matter if it is classified; instead we should try to limit such research on a global scale.
Of course, one can have plenty of objections to the notion that some experiments may destroy the planet, but if you buy that argument, then the conclusion is pretty obvious.
It does not make sense to say that these other ideas are succeeding/ replacing OOP. I don't think that people practicing for example Extreme Programing have stopped using objects, or that they promote the use of global variables.
Rather, there are refinements and additions to OOP, and they cover subjects that have not been addressed before. It is not that they address the same issues with a new set of solutions.
Slashdot Mirror
In a nutshell the grandmother can provide additional food resources to the weaned children of her child or her childrens mates (to increase their fertility) since she no longer has to provide those resources to her direct children and can produce excess to what she consumes.
Interesting addendum: it is now firmly established that this sort of support or its modern equivalents are stronger from maternal than from paternal grandmothers.
The reason is that paternal grandmothers cannot be 100% sure that the grandchild is really theirs. In most societies genetic testing reveals that 5-10% of all people are not the biological child of the person they believe is their real father.
Tor
Respectfully, I disagree.
First of all, let's think about Electrolux' objectives. It is not to make a robot that cleans 100% well. The goal is to get a robot that works reasonably well at a reasonable price.
I think they have reached the works reasonably well part, but not the price part.
Now is not the time to add an extra "crack-and-crevice tool that pokes out". Now is the time to work on cutting costs in production, and reaching a bigger market.
Of course, if it were as simple as a superficial change of shape to reach corners, I would agree with you completely. But I suspect that it is more complex than that. The simplest way to design these things is probably to have one suction point in the center. If that is the case, then circular shape is actually better than square.
The only way you can get the benefit out of a square design is if the suction point is actually at a corner (or sticks out in some direction). But such a design is much more complicated; and so will it be to program movement patterns for the thing.
Tor
Also, this is probably the most nit-picky post in my history of posting. God help us all.
This has to be challenged. : )
I think merchant's typically need coin, because most customers just give big bills and expect change. Thus they typically pay to get rolls from the banks.
Getting some extra coin from customers will make them have to do so less often and is thus beneficial. As long, of course, as it does not result in a net production as in your bank - but I don't think this is typical for most merchants.
Tor
Remember the article yesterday.
Tor
It seems like the objective here was to minimize coin exchange. Ususally I try to minimize the number of coins in my pocket.
If something costs 77c I give them 1.02 - and get a quarter back. In the US, the tellers stare at me blankly, but then dutifylly enter the amount I give them - and then smile in amazement at the simplicity of the exchange.
In Japan, it is almost the other way around. The tellers come up with the most creative combinations that minimize my number of coins (and maximize theirs - this is in both of our interest).
Tor
I heard a lecture from the CEO of Electrolux when this was in development five years ago, this is what he told us.
You are absolutely right about the reaching corners part. But apparently, they had done tests with people vacuuming and found that most people miss patches here and there. Thus while the robot does miss corners, it has slightly higher covering percentage overall.
Tor
the CEO of Electrolux (Michael Trechov) visited my engineering school in Sweden and told us about this new cool product - the robot vacuum cleaner. He was using a prototype at home.
I wonder what took them so long to go to market...
Tor
It also discusses how the meme was extinguished by the college administration.
I wonder when the other religous memes will be extinguished... it will probably be a while though, since listening to and absorbing everything your parents say is one of the key characteristics that have made humans so successful.
I hope soon, then we would not have to suffer through things like 9/11, or the terrors in Northern Ireland.
Tor
Fortune reports that the patent-pending practice of selling partners' used and new goods next to Amazon's own...
No. If you read the Fortune article, or the patent itself, you will see that this is not the case.
The patent covers the specific feature of pre-orders, e.g., allowing buyers to set up requests for used products.
It does not cover the basic idea of selling used goods next to the new. This is hardly patentable, because it does not pass the basic criterium for being patentable - it is not new!
Tor
In order for something to be patentable, it must (at least) be
New. Exhaling is not new, so it does not pass.
Unobvious. Whether somthing is unobvious or not is frequently a matter of great debate and difficult to judge. The most controversial cases like "one click shopping" are the ones that hit mainstream media.
Tor
On the back I can still read that we trust in God. Well, I am not so sure I share these supersitious beliefs. Does that mean that I am not an American or that I should not use the bill? Tor
In order to start a fusion reaction, you must reach these incredible temperatures.
For H-bombs, the idea is to use a fisson bomb to kick-start the whole thing.
Now they are trying to build fusion reactors, and obviously using fission power is not that popular (the whole point is to get rid of the problems of fission).
Using extremely powerful and focused lasers seems to be the best idea as yet. This is only needed to start the reaction, once it has started it is kept alive by its own power and a supply of hydrogen.
Tor
It might be useful for a e-book sort of thing, where it's unlikely you'll be reading faster than four pages a second.
This is unlikely. The main reason why ebooks have failed so miserably is not that current versions are too thick, but rather that they are simply uncomfortable to look at for long periods of time.
What is needed for ebooks is very high resolutions and frequencies, or some e-ink like technology that is based on reflecting light rahter than emitting it.
For the same reason, I don't believe this technology will work for newspapers.
Tor
He could charge something like $.01 for everytime you use it and still make a killing.
I don't care if he makes a killing, what matters if there will be less pop-ups.
Any price larger than zero is bound to result in fewer pop-ups than today.
Tor
How do light bulbs work? True, they burn as a side effect of being heated, but you apply electricity, and you [eventually] get light. Then there's the the whole laser thing... Florcent tubes?
Well, any light form needs energy - and electricity is a common way of providing this.
Light bulbs emit light because they are heated by electricity. Unfourtunately, about 95% of the light emitted is not visible to humans, and thus wasted (human eyes are tuned to best view light from a certain body at about 6000 degrees, and this is much hotter than the light bulb - thus the inefficiency).
There are, however, ways to convert electricity to light without heating anything. LEDs do this - all energy is converted to light of a single certain frequency - which we can see. This is true for lasers also, but they go even further by not only having light of a single frequency but also aligning the light waves that compose the light.
But both light bulbs and LEDs are made of big crystals of metal / silicon (as opposed to molecules). What is new here is the atomic structure of the of the light emitting material; it is nanotubes which technically are big molecules. This is a major discovery - although it is probably too early to tell exactly what it will be useful for in the future.
Tor
In order for this to work, they would have to make the beam extremely focused from transmitted to receiver.
If they don't do this, not only do they get the heatlh issues you point out, but the system simply won't work in practice.
All energy that is not captured by the receiver is lost.
Tor
It seems to me as the main advantage of newspapers printed on papers is that it is much more comfortable to look at than a computer screen. It is also more comfortable to read in a favourite chair.
I can't imagine that large portions of the population will be willing to give these comforts up for less than a buck a day.
Of course, one day ultra-light laptops with revolutionary, easy-on-the-eyes screens may be commonplace; but until then I would not count out the printing press.
Tor
Isn't it a little risky to put location transponders on all your military units? If the enemy cracks your transponder codes, they can easily target you.
Similar concerns can be raised about almost any military technology or activity. Don't use radio - the enemy might hear what you say! Don't use radar - the enemy will know where you are! Don't open fire - you will reveal your position!
Military winners are willing to take such risks in pursuing their objectives. They know that being aware of the situation and acting proactivly and agressively is more important than never revealing anything to the enemy. There are of course circumstances where one should be stealthy, but wars are not won by armies remaining completely hidden in cover.
Tor
In my engineering school there was this story about a guy in the CS department who had been "living" in front of one of the workstations for years.
On one occasion, he was helping some newbie with something; and he allowed the guy to log into his account. Naively, the newbie asked for the password across the room; everyone else in the computer center listened up expecting a refusal.
But instead, this CS guy just started to tell his password "j3Y9_fg..." loudly; the newbie started to type. But the password just kept comming; it was up towards 50 completely random characters long!
It turned out that the system insisted on a changed password every month; but the default selection was the old password. Rather than coming up with something new every month, this guy had just added one more character every time. Of course, it is not too hard to memorize one more character per month month either.
Tor
Many posts correctly point out that these discounts are designed so that many who intend to send them in never bother/ succeed. But there is actually a more subtle reason as well; the same reason that supermarkets use coupons (as opposed to just lowering the price).
That reason is price differentiation. If the company charges a high price, they sell few units at a high margin; a low price means more units a lower margin. By introducing these coupon schemes, they can charge different prices for the same product. Price-sensitive customers go through the trouble of filling in the coupons, insensitive ones don't. It is the best of both worlds!
Another example of price differentiation is university tuition. There it is called "financial aid" - a scheme clearly designed to make everyone pay exactly what they can afford (note: I am not saying that there is something wrong with financial aid; I am just pointing out that it is very much in the financial interest of the universities).
Tor
GW used to be a much different organization. As they became bigger and bigger, it seems like they really lost touch with the gamers, and they kept targetting a younger and younger crowd. I mean, if you can, get your hands on a copy of "Rogue Trader" -- and then compare the feel of the rules to the ones from the latest edition of WH40k. They've added more models, and yeah, they're better models, but it feels like they've surrounded them in a web of dense, arbitrary rules.
I agree with everything, except the rules part. They have turned the game from a sort of "big RPG battles" to "streamlined massive warfare". The rules these days are much better to run massive battles.
Of course, this is very much in their interest, as it encourages people to buy lots of models. In general, you hear a lot of complaints about their prices. But let's face it; they are making some great games and they have every right to charge what they want for their products. If you don't like it, buy some other game (there are competitors, but none as good).
I am, however, starting to change my mind when I read about this. It is one thing charging for your products, it is another intimidating and constraining retailers. It also illegal in many countries.
Tor
Argh!!!! Who do we hate more?! Spammers or AOL? Thank goodness MS isn't involved in this story or I'd be really perplexed.
If you hate both Spammers and AOL you should happy that they are fighting each other.
Tor
There are a lot of highly moderated posts making the point that if we don't research this, then somebody else will.
Well, if you RTFA, you will see that it is not so much concerned about technologies that can be used as powerful weapons, etc. Rather it cites experiments that in themselves are so dangerous that they could destroy the planet, by for example creating black wholes or nano-machines that replicate out of hand.
If these were feasible (personally I doubt it) then the conclusions drawn make a lot of sense. It is does not make us much good if we are the inventors of the nano-robot that ate the world. If such risks exists (again, I don't think they do) we must work to stop the experiments, on a global scale.
Tor
If research is truly dangerous then classify it. But not to research it only leaves you behind when other nations research it.
I think the point was that certain experiments are so dangerous that they could destroy the whole planet if they go wrong.
Then it does not matter if it is classified; instead we should try to limit such research on a global scale.
Of course, one can have plenty of objections to the notion that some experiments may destroy the planet, but if you buy that argument, then the conclusion is pretty obvious.
Tor
It does not make sense to say that these other ideas are succeeding/ replacing OOP. I don't think that people practicing for example Extreme Programing have stopped using objects, or that they promote the use of global variables.
Rather, there are refinements and additions to OOP, and they cover subjects that have not been addressed before. It is not that they address the same issues with a new set of solutions.
Tor