This is the thing that has always puzzled me about quantum mechanics. What is an observer? Is a cat an observer? What about a measuring device that displays a value, but nobody reads it?
Surely we can't be in a situation where everyone has an entirely different universe depending on who observed what.
Oh yes, Agile. Sounds great until management gets hold of it. Then they turn it into permanent sprints, oversized teams, and basically a micromanagement clusterfuck. Thereâ(TM)s a clue in that word âoesprintâ. You canâ(TM)t do continuous sprints. Then itâ(TM)s not a sprint. You need a rest period.
I seem to recall similar totally ridiculous patents. Didn't Apple sue Samsung at great length about, what was it, bouncing when you couldn't scroll any more? Or was it rounded corners? This sounds like payback.
Really, this patent issue is well and truly out of hand.
Quite a number of countries in the world offer university study for low or zero fees. Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands. These countries are of similar levels of wealth to USA. USA has made a choice to make higher education (and medicine, but that's another, sadder, story) a source of profit. This is a choice - many think it a poor choice. It means that student of lesser means, regardless of their ability, do not have the opportunity to study at top universities.
This is a choice of the USA political system. And a fairly recent choice - USA degrees used to be affordable, but now they are not - students end up saddled with high debts. What has changed?
Many countries, certainly UK and Australia, do leave students with debts, and paying them back is fairly painful - but not bankrupting.
USA, supposedly the land of opportunity, has chosen not to make that opportunity available to all. All in the pursuit of the almighty dollar.
When I was involved in Agile, it was indeed pointless. It was in a major bank, and basically descended into institutionalised micromanagement. It was pretty horrible, and I hated it.
There was no opportunity to spend time to actually think about things, it was all rush, rush, rush.
The is a saying "More haste, less speed", and I think it applies here.
The NRA is not responsible for every single shooting. But there's a strong correlation between their existence, and shooting. In all countries with the NRA there is 10x the number of shootings as in ones without.
You know it's a funny thing,. According to recent historical documents, the CIA was required to take action where there was a one percent chance of causing terrorist activity. You'd think the NRA would make that mark easily.
So, they are bad dudes. Fat, ugly, gun carrying, gas guzzling vehicle driving redneck bad dudes? Really - well, yes, often, probably mostly, but not always. But as a political organisation, they are pretty horrible. They agitate to stop any gun measure, no matter how sensible. Crazy people with guns - why not? 12 year olds with guns, sure, let's do it.
And the slaughter continues. Someone even gets shot by a toddler every week in the USA. Toddlers kill more Americans than terrorists. Could it be you are spending the money in the wrong place?
I admit DDOSing a website is a bad thing. But it's hard to be sympathetic to an organisation that indirectly causes the death of thousands each year. I wouldn't be terribly sad about attacks on the KKK, or the Scientologists, or even the Catholic Church, come to that.
Fusion may not be mysterious, the physics is not that hard in theory, but the practice seems to elude us. Except for big giant world destroying bombs, of course. We can do that.
The tokamak doesn't seem to work - it certainly hasn't so far. There are many other approaches that cold do with throwing a few million or billion at. We seem to have beaten tokamaks to death without success. Yes, it's theoretically possible. But many things work in theory, just not in practice.
America already has it both ways. Virtually alone in the world, the USA demands its citizens submit tax returns even when they are resident and employed overseas. It further demands (using what can only be described as blackmail) records on bank accounts held by American individuals overseas, including people resident there (FATCA). So if an American moves to - say - an African country, and works there, earning a small amount of money which is not taxed, Uncle Sam still wants to know about it. Virtually no other countries do this. (Only the United States, the Philippines, and Eritrea). Basically normal countries accept that you should be taxed where you earn the money.
I think Tesla might have something to say about this. So what now, will we get a competitive bidding process to see who can monopolise the supply of lithium, cobalt, etc? Vertical integration going a little far, I fear.
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
No. In most places, you hear quite a lot about the rest of the world. Youâ(TM)d find everyone in australIa, where I live, would be aware of the joys of Trump, and May, and Angela Merkel. Iâ(TM)d bet a majority of Americans would be unaware of all but trump. Or at least a fair proportion. I doubt many Americans could name the Aussie prime minister, and we are one of your closest allies. Quite a lot could not even find Australia on a map, but thatâ(TM)s a seperate issue. (Some canâ(TM)t even find USA, which frankly is pretty scary, but I digress). Iâ(TM)d really prefer that people saw more than local news. It makes them better people, less insular, less prejudiced which surely has to be good. Living in a very small echo chamber cannot be good for anyone.
In the USA, itâ(TM)s easy to totally ignore the rest of the world. The news is incredibly local, to the point where youâ(TM)d scarcely believe the rest of the world even existed. Indeed it takes a certain amount of effort to even get news from other states. This is a bad idea by Facebook. The world does exist, itâ(TM)d be good for people, especially Americans, to hear news from other counties, like France or Australia, Macedonia, or Malawi.
About 1980, I sailed a small boat across the Atlantic. Water was a major concern as we had to allow for double the trip time of 22days in case we had severe problems (we didnâ(TM)t, fortunately ). We had limited tankage, and desalination had not been invented. We washed in salt water, washed dishes in saltwater, the toilet use saltwater. Our consumption was about 2.2 litres per day each. Not 22, 2.2. This was basically for drinking and cooking. It was ok. We did have a limited supply of drinks (one per day), and there was liquid in the cans of food we used.
Somewhat extreme, perhaps; these days Iâ(TM)d get a desalinator and wash in freshwater, for sure. But it does show how far you can go.
In Gibraltar, salt water was piped to taps, I imagine they no longer do this, again, needs must!
We seem to have concentrated our world societies into a very small band, based on moderated capitalism with varying degrees of democracy. We all know that mono cultures are risky, subject to single points of attack. So itâ(TM)s worth looking at alternatives. And there are not many in the world. North Korea is definitely different. Not nice perhaps, but definitely different.
It is foolish to believe the systems we use are the only ones possible, or even workable, not to say arrogant.
You know, I don't think too many homeless people CHOSE that lifestyle. If you spoke to some, you'd find a long series of sad stories, many of them true. It's ridiculously arrogant to assume that just because you are doing well, others can too. This is in the USA - in a very wealthy area - but one medical emergency can bankrupt you - and that's probably what happened to a fair proportion of these folk. It could happen to you, too. Your job goes offshore, you become unemployed. Your medical insurance stops. You get depressed, cannot keep up with the mortgage or car payments. Your partner leaves you, and you have no active family. Bingo, you are on the streets.
We need a better solution. A basic income would help. A sensible (and cheaper) approach to medicine would help enormously. And a change in attitude from "it's your fault, you deserve to suffer" would be good too.
The institutionalised bribery system of the worlds largest economy, otherwise known as lobbying, has been staggering the world for some time. Isnâ(TM)t it time to change to an actual democracy that represent its people?
Spending money now has been evaluated as being drastically cheaper than trying to fix things up later. If the glacier dams give way, and we get a fairly sudden sea level rise, flooding most coastal cities, eg nyc, can you imagine the costs, the loss of life, the mad dash of millions to escape? It sounds expensive. And of course there are humanitarian issues, but these seem to be ignored by the current USA government. Itâ(TM)ll be way cheaper to dive in now, and get some real reductions, and possibly reduce the temperature rises to something tolerable. Or do you believe all these scientists, polar bears, migrating trees, and retreating glaciers are all fake news?
Slashdot Mirror
The funny thing is that what a terrorist wants is a large collection of people, all crowded together, in a place where no security checks occur.
Like, you know, the queue for the security checks.
The real trouble is finding 1,000 out of 10 guns.
False positives. It's a pain.
This is the thing that has always puzzled me about quantum mechanics.
What is an observer? Is a cat an observer? What about a measuring device that displays a value, but nobody reads it?
Surely we can't be in a situation where everyone has an entirely different universe depending on who observed what.
Can we?
Oh yes, Agile.
Sounds great until management gets hold of it. Then they turn it into permanent sprints, oversized teams, and basically a micromanagement clusterfuck.
Thereâ(TM)s a clue in that word âoesprintâ. You canâ(TM)t do continuous sprints. Then itâ(TM)s not a sprint. You need a rest period.
Best of luck. It is encouraging to see more space activity from multiple countries.
Go Japan! Go Israel!
Clearly, we need to make America Grate again.
I seem to recall similar totally ridiculous patents. Didn't Apple sue Samsung at great length about, what was it, bouncing when you couldn't scroll any more? Or was it rounded corners? This sounds like payback.
Really, this patent issue is well and truly out of hand.
Can I patent the wheel, please? How about a box?
Quite a number of countries in the world offer university study for low or zero fees. Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands. These countries are of similar levels of wealth to USA.
USA has made a choice to make higher education (and medicine, but that's another, sadder, story) a source of profit. This is a choice - many think it a poor choice.
It means that student of lesser means, regardless of their ability, do not have the opportunity to study at top universities.
This is a choice of the USA political system. And a fairly recent choice - USA degrees used to be affordable, but now they are not - students end up saddled with high debts. What has changed?
Many countries, certainly UK and Australia, do leave students with debts, and paying them back is fairly painful - but not bankrupting.
USA, supposedly the land of opportunity, has chosen not to make that opportunity available to all. All in the pursuit of the almighty dollar.
What has happened to you?
Pirates of the Caribbean rule ok.
When I was involved in Agile, it was indeed pointless. It was in a major bank, and basically descended into institutionalised micromanagement.
It was pretty horrible, and I hated it.
There was no opportunity to spend time to actually think about things, it was all rush, rush, rush.
The is a saying "More haste, less speed", and I think it applies here.
The NRA is not responsible for every single shooting. But there's a strong correlation between their existence, and shooting.
In all countries with the NRA there is 10x the number of shootings as in ones without.
You know it's a funny thing,. According to recent historical documents, the CIA was required to take action where there was a one percent chance of causing terrorist activity. You'd think the NRA would make that mark easily.
So, they are bad dudes. Fat, ugly, gun carrying, gas guzzling vehicle driving redneck bad dudes? Really - well, yes, often, probably mostly, but not always. But as a political organisation, they are pretty horrible. They agitate to stop any gun measure, no matter how sensible. Crazy people with guns - why not? 12 year olds with guns, sure, let's do it.
And the slaughter continues. Someone even gets shot by a toddler every week in the USA. Toddlers kill more Americans than terrorists.
Could it be you are spending the money in the wrong place?
I admit DDOSing a website is a bad thing. But it's hard to be sympathetic to an organisation that indirectly causes the death of thousands each year. I wouldn't be terribly sad about attacks on the KKK, or the Scientologists, or even the Catholic Church, come to that.
Fusion may not be mysterious, the physics is not that hard in theory, but the practice seems to elude us.
Except for big giant world destroying bombs, of course. We can do that.
The tokamak doesn't seem to work - it certainly hasn't so far. There are many other approaches that cold do with throwing a few million or billion at. We seem to have beaten tokamaks to death without success. Yes, it's theoretically possible. But many things work in theory, just not in practice.
I remember as a very young kid, seeing reports that we'd have fusion reactors in 15 years.
That was in 1960.
I'd like to be optimistic, really, but it's a bit of a challenge.
America already has it both ways. Virtually alone in the world, the USA demands its citizens submit tax returns even when they are resident and employed overseas. It further demands (using what can only be described as blackmail) records on bank accounts held by American individuals overseas, including people resident there (FATCA).
So if an American moves to - say - an African country, and works there, earning a small amount of money which is not taxed, Uncle Sam still wants to know about it.
Virtually no other countries do this. (Only the United States, the Philippines, and Eritrea). Basically normal countries accept that you should be taxed where you earn the money.
I think Tesla might have something to say about this.
So what now, will we get a competitive bidding process to see who can monopolise the supply of lithium, cobalt, etc?
Vertical integration going a little far, I fear.
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
No. In most places, you hear quite a lot about the rest of the world. Youâ(TM)d find everyone in australIa, where I live, would be aware of the joys of Trump, and May, and Angela Merkel. Iâ(TM)d bet a majority of Americans would be unaware of all but trump. Or at least a fair proportion.
I doubt many Americans could name the Aussie prime minister, and we are one of your closest allies. Quite a lot could not even find Australia on a map, but thatâ(TM)s a seperate issue. (Some canâ(TM)t even find USA, which frankly is pretty scary, but I digress).
Iâ(TM)d really prefer that people saw more than local news. It makes them better people, less insular, less prejudiced which surely has to be good. Living in a very small echo chamber cannot be good for anyone.
In the USA, itâ(TM)s easy to totally ignore the rest of the world. The news is incredibly local, to the point where youâ(TM)d scarcely believe the rest of the world even existed. Indeed it takes a certain amount of effort to even get news from other states.
This is a bad idea by Facebook. The world does exist, itâ(TM)d be good for people, especially Americans, to hear news from other counties, like France or Australia, Macedonia, or Malawi.
About 1980, I sailed a small boat across the Atlantic. Water was a major concern as we had to allow for double the trip time of 22days in case we had severe problems (we didnâ(TM)t, fortunately ). We had limited tankage, and desalination had not been invented.
We washed in salt water, washed dishes in saltwater, the toilet use saltwater. Our consumption was about 2.2 litres per day each. Not 22, 2.2.
This was basically for drinking and cooking. It was ok. We did have a limited supply of drinks (one per day), and there was liquid in the cans of food we used.
Somewhat extreme, perhaps; these days Iâ(TM)d get a desalinator and wash in freshwater, for sure. But it does show how far you can go.
In Gibraltar, salt water was piped to taps, I imagine they no longer do this, again, needs must!
We seem to have concentrated our world societies into a very small band, based on moderated capitalism with varying degrees of democracy.
We all know that mono cultures are risky, subject to single points of attack.
So itâ(TM)s worth looking at alternatives. And there are not many in the world. North Korea is definitely different. Not nice perhaps, but definitely different.
It is foolish to believe the systems we use are the only ones possible, or even workable, not to say arrogant.
It might feed mine.
You know, I don't think too many homeless people CHOSE that lifestyle. If you spoke to some, you'd find a long series of sad stories, many of them true.
It's ridiculously arrogant to assume that just because you are doing well, others can too.
This is in the USA - in a very wealthy area - but one medical emergency can bankrupt you - and that's probably what happened to a fair proportion of these folk.
It could happen to you, too. Your job goes offshore, you become unemployed. Your medical insurance stops. You get depressed, cannot keep up with the mortgage or car payments. Your partner leaves you, and you have no active family.
Bingo, you are on the streets.
We need a better solution. A basic income would help. A sensible (and cheaper) approach to medicine would help enormously. And a change in attitude from "it's your fault, you deserve to suffer" would be good too.
The institutionalised bribery system of the worlds largest economy, otherwise known as lobbying, has been staggering the world for some time.
Isnâ(TM)t it time to change to an actual democracy that represent its people?
Spending money now has been evaluated as being drastically cheaper than trying to fix things up later.
If the glacier dams give way, and we get a fairly sudden sea level rise, flooding most coastal cities, eg nyc, can you imagine the costs, the loss of life, the mad dash of millions to escape?
It sounds expensive. And of course there are humanitarian issues, but these seem to be ignored by the current USA government.
Itâ(TM)ll be way cheaper to dive in now, and get some real reductions, and possibly reduce the temperature rises to something tolerable.
Or do you believe all these scientists, polar bears, migrating trees, and retreating glaciers are all fake news?