There are various "dreams" of course, but the Gold Rush mentality has always been strong in US culture. Our current top marginal tax rates certainly support that assertion - average people pay dearly in real money to protect their fantasy future-self.
Any marketplace of infinitely scalable production is a lottery!
Before music recordings, if you wanted to hear music, somebody had to play it. A more popular musician could make somewhat more than an average musician - maybe substantially more - but the top handful couldn't entertain the entire planet singlehandedly. Now they can. The economy of agrarian farmers - where a 20% more productive farmer makes 20% more money - is over. Now it's winner-takes-all.
I liked your post right up to the last sentence when you said the real problem is our tendency to not check everything. That is simply not possible. Life rolls forward on a vast number of assumptions every moment, and most of them are correct, or good enough to get by on. (False assumptions that don't matter and cannot be observed - like this Amelia Bedelia thing - can linger indefinitely).
Which part do you find suspect? Tesla wants to make a major launch of a $35K all-electric car, which will require a huge number of batteries, above and beyond the current supply. The word "allegation" sounds as if you think the new Telsa model won't use batteries? Or that there's already enough production to support the new Tesla model, presumably going straight into a huge hole in the ground? Or what?
This being slashdot, it would be nice to have the article on "gotcha" licensing accompanied by at least as much information what it actually is, and when it would be worth paying for. (And not just some snarky comments about how cheaper databases already have in-memory tables, unless that's really all it is!)
I am a bit unusual in NOT having started drinking coffee until almost the age of 40, and had the same experience of hyper-concentration the first time! Now I can hardly feel anything, if at all.
I think growing tolerance to drugs is practically universal. I've known several people who started Prozac etc. and told me, "wow, so THIS is what I've been missing! Life is so great!" But fast forward a year, and they don't seem that much happier. Yet they still have a costly prescription for the rest of their lives.
Sigh, I must be on slashdot. "Unlimited" doesn't mean "free from the laws of physics." It means it isn't limited by the carrier. (If I told you there was no speed limit on the autobahn, would you honestly think I was hoping to drive faster-than-light?)
Oh boy, brace yourself for thousands more comments like this objecting to the idea that there is one single "ideal human" and finding 'his' exact DNA sequence, even though nobody has stated such intent and there is no reason to do it.
From the Tesla Motors website: "As we at Tesla reach for our goal of producing a mass market electric car in approximately three years, we have an opportunity to leverage our projected demand for lithium ion batteries to reduce their cost faster than previously thought possible.... By the end of the first year of volume production of our mass market vehicle, we expect the Gigafactory will have driven down the per kWh cost of our battery pack by more than 30 percent."
Surely you have heard of the Tesla Gigafactory? It is a $5BN investment that does nothing but address your exact concern. It doesn't address range. It doesn't address recharge time. It addresses COST.
I would like to understand this. The article says that losses for the next quarter are expected to be larger: "Mr. Szkutak listed some of the reasons: Amazon Web Services is in a price-cutting war with Google and others. Six new warehouses have opened. And the company will spend $100 million on new content to put on those phones and Kindles."
The warehouses, at least, are quintessential infrastructure investment. You are saying Szkutak is incorrect in asserting they cut into short-term profits?
Amazon's revenue grew 23% over the same quarter last year. If the company were not growing AND not profiting, that would be bad. But as large as Amazon's revenues now are, to still be growing that fast is very impressive, and proves they could start taking profits at any moment simply by pocketing more revenue instead of re-investing.
Is this the release that adds support for HiDPI on external displays? I was pretty disappointed when I got a 4k display to find that it was unusable under OS X 10.9.3. (You can drive it at 4k, but cannot scale the interface).
Yeah, the first thing I thought of was: how many people who graduate with any 4-year degree stay in their field of study? Without having anything to compare this to, how do we know that the numbers for STEM graduates are abnormal?
But everybody knows that people with degrees in Communications and Political Science aren't going to work in those fields (if they even exist). But to get a job that requires "a degree" (of any type), going through an EE or physics program is hardly the most efficient route.
I've long said that the computing field is one where you can make decent money without a degree.
That also used to be more true of the economy as a whole, but I think that would be a super-risky plan for a young person starting out today. An ever-higher percentage of applicants have a degree, raising the bar.
Unifying the UI is less important and desirable than unifying the underlying OS. I can understand having to re-write a more restricted UI for small displays - but the core of the application? In a different language even? That should not be necessary. Granted it was justified in the past, but mobile devices are powerful enough to run a real operating system now.
"Pollution" is by definition a bit of spin on top of the science, since it is a socially-defined term. (Just as a botanist would never hope to find a gene that is found in all weeds, and only in weeds). But expanding the list of compositions that are best explained by the existence of life is still a useful exercise.
Adding memory to this equation means you can store data on the paper until the transaction is complete. I can't come up with a reason for this on the spot but I can imagine there are processes that could benefit from it.
But once you can uniquely identify each object (with a simple bar code or RFID), it's easy to associate any amount of information with it, in a database somewhere. The more ubiquitous network connectivity becomes, the more location transparency you have, and the less need to store information directly in a specific place.
In short, this is a floppy disk, but on a paper backing.
But that's just it. If the government says "you can't live there," people rebel. But if a sign saying "Private Property - No Trespassing" bars the same people from even setting foot there, and they are priced out of buying their own property there because it is too expensive, that they have no problem with, since it's just economic forces at work, which are presumably infallible or for that matter unstoppable.
What is the solution? Other than allowing insurance companies to price such considerations into their policies, I don't see one. Simply zoning the land into oblivion by law is too crude, given that many places come with risks to varying degree. Money is practically the only way to get people to think quantitatively, and insurance companies have the resources to factor in things like environmental studies whereas individuals do not.
Google built its business by developing its own infrastructure, starting with custom servers in pizza boxes and lego. What crazy company runs out and develops its own filesystem for its own internal use? Google did.
Slashdot Mirror
There are various "dreams" of course, but the Gold Rush mentality has always been strong in US culture. Our current top marginal tax rates certainly support that assertion - average people pay dearly in real money to protect their fantasy future-self.
Before music recordings, if you wanted to hear music, somebody had to play it. A more popular musician could make somewhat more than an average musician - maybe substantially more - but the top handful couldn't entertain the entire planet singlehandedly. Now they can. The economy of agrarian farmers - where a 20% more productive farmer makes 20% more money - is over. Now it's winner-takes-all.
I liked your post right up to the last sentence when you said the real problem is our tendency to not check everything. That is simply not possible. Life rolls forward on a vast number of assumptions every moment, and most of them are correct, or good enough to get by on. (False assumptions that don't matter and cannot be observed - like this Amelia Bedelia thing - can linger indefinitely).
Which part do you find suspect? Tesla wants to make a major launch of a $35K all-electric car, which will require a huge number of batteries, above and beyond the current supply. The word "allegation" sounds as if you think the new Telsa model won't use batteries? Or that there's already enough production to support the new Tesla model, presumably going straight into a huge hole in the ground? Or what?
This being slashdot, it would be nice to have the article on "gotcha" licensing accompanied by at least as much information what it actually is, and when it would be worth paying for. (And not just some snarky comments about how cheaper databases already have in-memory tables, unless that's really all it is!)
I think growing tolerance to drugs is practically universal. I've known several people who started Prozac etc. and told me, "wow, so THIS is what I've been missing! Life is so great!" But fast forward a year, and they don't seem that much happier. Yet they still have a costly prescription for the rest of their lives.
Sigh, I must be on slashdot. "Unlimited" doesn't mean "free from the laws of physics." It means it isn't limited by the carrier. (If I told you there was no speed limit on the autobahn, would you honestly think I was hoping to drive faster-than-light?)
Oh boy, brace yourself for thousands more comments like this objecting to the idea that there is one single "ideal human" and finding 'his' exact DNA sequence, even though nobody has stated such intent and there is no reason to do it.
From the Tesla Motors website: "As we at Tesla reach for our goal of producing a mass market electric car in approximately three years, we have an opportunity to leverage our projected demand for lithium ion batteries to reduce their cost faster than previously thought possible.... By the end of the first year of volume production of our mass market vehicle, we expect the Gigafactory will have driven down the per kWh cost of our battery pack by more than 30 percent."
Surely you have heard of the Tesla Gigafactory? It is a $5BN investment that does nothing but address your exact concern. It doesn't address range. It doesn't address recharge time. It addresses COST.
The warehouses, at least, are quintessential infrastructure investment. You are saying Szkutak is incorrect in asserting they cut into short-term profits?
Amazon's revenue grew 23% over the same quarter last year. If the company were not growing AND not profiting, that would be bad. But as large as Amazon's revenues now are, to still be growing that fast is very impressive, and proves they could start taking profits at any moment simply by pocketing more revenue instead of re-investing.
Then I suggest you not enter any races in which the loser will die.
And where did you hear it? According to wikipedia:
Wingspan:
F35: 35'
F14: 64' / 38' (swept)
F15: 42'
F16: 32'
F18 C/D: 40'
Empty Weight
F35: 29,000 lb
F14: 43,700 lb
F15: 28,000 lb
F16: 18,900 lb
F18: 23,000 lb
Combat radius (internal stores)
F35: 600 nm
F14: 500 nm
F15: 1000 nm
F16: 340 nm
F18: 400 nm
Of what can be verified, none of what you heard is correct...
Is this the release that adds support for HiDPI on external displays? I was pretty disappointed when I got a 4k display to find that it was unusable under OS X 10.9.3. (You can drive it at 4k, but cannot scale the interface).
But everybody knows that people with degrees in Communications and Political Science aren't going to work in those fields (if they even exist). But to get a job that requires "a degree" (of any type), going through an EE or physics program is hardly the most efficient route.
That also used to be more true of the economy as a whole, but I think that would be a super-risky plan for a young person starting out today. An ever-higher percentage of applicants have a degree, raising the bar.
Unifying the UI is less important and desirable than unifying the underlying OS. I can understand having to re-write a more restricted UI for small displays - but the core of the application? In a different language even? That should not be necessary. Granted it was justified in the past, but mobile devices are powerful enough to run a real operating system now.
"Pollution" is by definition a bit of spin on top of the science, since it is a socially-defined term. (Just as a botanist would never hope to find a gene that is found in all weeds, and only in weeds). But expanding the list of compositions that are best explained by the existence of life is still a useful exercise.
That the parent was most likely right in surmising the intended use as a laser weapon.
But once you can uniquely identify each object (with a simple bar code or RFID), it's easy to associate any amount of information with it, in a database somewhere. The more ubiquitous network connectivity becomes, the more location transparency you have, and the less need to store information directly in a specific place.
In short, this is a floppy disk, but on a paper backing.
But that's just it. If the government says "you can't live there," people rebel. But if a sign saying "Private Property - No Trespassing" bars the same people from even setting foot there, and they are priced out of buying their own property there because it is too expensive, that they have no problem with, since it's just economic forces at work, which are presumably infallible or for that matter unstoppable.
What is the solution? Other than allowing insurance companies to price such considerations into their policies, I don't see one. Simply zoning the land into oblivion by law is too crude, given that many places come with risks to varying degree. Money is practically the only way to get people to think quantitatively, and insurance companies have the resources to factor in things like environmental studies whereas individuals do not.
Whoah, google spent $7,300,000,000 on data centers last year and doesn't even know what voltage they run on? Time to sell my stock!
Google built its business by developing its own infrastructure, starting with custom servers in pizza boxes and lego. What crazy company runs out and develops its own filesystem for its own internal use? Google did.