> Point of consideration that Walmart bullies around smaller suppliers while Amazon is taking a stand against one of the major publishers with Hachette and Warner Bros which is operated by Time Warner who is currently seeking Anti-Trust approval to merge with Comcast.
Indeed. This is where I get conflicted. Amazon using their clout to push Time Warner around is like seeing a bully getting a beat-down by another bully. The winner might push you around next, but while the fight is occurring, it's fun to watch.
"This Amazon circus just shows us the dangers with a monopoly where one player dictates what can be purchased and sold"...... You said, in response to someone pointing out that a COMPETITOR of Amazon will still gladly take your money in exchange for goods and services.
/ I do not think it means what you think it means
I think he phrased it badly. I took this to mean, we have to be very careful about monopolies developing for exactly this reason. In other words, not saying that Amazon is a monopoly, but that their behavior is the reason a monopoly would be bad.
Every time I see another (or repeated...) article about healthcare.gov, I'm reminded that a common final assignment for a second year Active Server Pages class is to code a website to offer a list of services for sale.
"If it were easy, everyone would be doing it". Oh, wait... everyone is.
I strongly suspect that the "500 million lines of code" was someone working backwards from the cost. They looked at the reported dollar amount and went "ye gods! if we admit we paid that much for 20K lines of code we'll never hold office again."
At least in some cases, it was a matter of pressing on the brake but also catching the edge of the throttle. The brake had enough travel before braking commenced, that the throttle, when pressed an equal amount, gave the engine enough gas to overcome the brake. Reflex is to press harder, which makes the problem worse.
Test by: All cases involved an automatic transmission. The problem didn't materialize in manual transmissions because drivers have generally been trained to press the clutch and brake at the same time.
It's easy to blame incompetence, but sometimes it really is -- not a bad design -- (having the brake and throttle close together is helpful if you're trained to use the arrangement correctly) but a design that is more prone to error in a population that does not get that kind of training. Even engineers need to know their audience.
Incidentally, I nearly made this mistake in my truck (also an automatic) last weekend. Pressed on the brake in the parking garage and the vehicle accelerated. I had lazily pushed on the right side of the brake pedal and the edge of my boot had caught on the edge of the throttle. I quickly raised my foot and brought it down square on the brake pedal, avoided a fender bender. Entirely my fault. But in the Audi case, the arrangement of the pedals made this type of occurrence likely enough that a reasonable person would consider it dangerous.
As I recall, the problem in the Audi case was having the brake and throttle too close together. Fine for heel/toe operations by an experienced race driver, bad for casual drivers.
> The biggest shame is that this comes as a surprise to so many of them AFTER they've graduated.
I think it's a matter of denial. Being in humanities is comfortable. You learn the process of being at university and the process of making your professors happy and the process of negotiating a doctorate, and the rest is social mixers and waking up in the park naked with no idea how you got there. (This isn't just me, is it?) If you're getting a full ride, there's a tendency, I think, to just enjoy the trip and not worry about what you're actually going to do with your life until the subject becomes urgent.
My opinion, the F-35 will always be in beta. The design and procurement process is fundamentally broken. That being the case, they might as well buy now; it's not gonna get any better.
On the same page at the same time, "AT&T To Use Phone Geolocation To Prevent Credit Card Fraud" (the example for which was credit card transactions in Russia) and "AT&T Charges $750 For One Minute of International Data Roaming". That's brilliant.
My old smart phone holster wore out recently, so I bought a new one. This one has a convenient extra pocket for credit cards and other forms of ID. It seems to me that putting your ID, credit cards, and your phone all in one conveniently stealable container might not be the brightest thing to do. All it needs is a key ring...
At its Dearborn Heights, Mich. facility, 14 different industrial 3D printers turn out 20,000 parts a year.
H'mm... that's approx 6 parts per machine per working day.
Not much of a story here, just PR.
Enh, perhaps. The story for me was this:
> Ford has been using 3D printing for rapid prototyping since the mid-1980s
Think of how recently 3D printing has entered common consciousness. Back in the eighties, I managed projects that involved (amongst many other things) creating custom parts via lost wax casting. And I had never heard of 3D printing at the time except as a joke in rec.humor. (The Xerox 3d printer is a great achievement, but the apple tastes of toner. That time the service guy was fixing it when someone accidentally turned it on -- the arm it spat out wrecked the copy room and had to be beaten into submission by security guards.)
Does this count? In bed at 3:00 AM, walking a nighttime operator through opening a script in VI and reading the code to me, (I hadn't written it) spotting the bug, and walking him through correcting the code. He had never written a program before, and I'm pretty sure he had never used VI before. It takes a lot of patience and someone who can listen and follow directions, but it's definitely doable.
Your story is better, but I wanted to say, I once wrote a test script for the company's sales force in Australia. He asked what I wanted for it. I said send me some vegemite. (I'd heard of it, but never tried it.)
I'm hooked on the stuff now, (the secret is not to put on too much -- just a taste) and since I don't work for that company anymore, I have to buy the stuff online. It takes almost a month to get here. And the cheesybite for some reason takes even longer.
> and someone decided it wasn't economical to buy a newer version of Windows
That's a significant reason. Or, the newer version of windows won't run on the old (but still adequate) hardware, for whatever reason -- drivers, or lack of sufficient grunt.
...and that's the most likely use case -- solar powered (albeit slow moving) drones that can stay up for long periods of time, providing the weather isn't too rambunctious.
Slashdot Mirror
> Point of consideration that Walmart bullies around smaller suppliers while Amazon is taking a stand against one of the major publishers with Hachette and Warner Bros which is operated by Time Warner who is currently seeking Anti-Trust approval to merge with Comcast.
Indeed. This is where I get conflicted. Amazon using their clout to push Time Warner around is like seeing a bully getting a beat-down by another bully. The winner might push you around next, but while the fight is occurring, it's fun to watch.
"This Amazon circus just shows us the dangers with a monopoly where one player dictates what can be purchased and sold" ... ... You said, in response to someone pointing out that a COMPETITOR of Amazon will still gladly take your money in exchange for goods and services.
/ I do not think it means what you think it means
I think he phrased it badly. I took this to mean, we have to be very careful about monopolies developing for exactly this reason. In other words, not saying that Amazon is a monopoly, but that their behavior is the reason a monopoly would be bad.
Very good point. This is why it's important to have competition.
Didn't Citroen have this feature decades ago?
Whelp, we know who you voted for...
Every time I see another (or repeated...) article about healthcare.gov, I'm reminded that a common final assignment for a second year Active Server Pages class is to code a website to offer a list of services for sale.
"If it were easy, everyone would be doing it". Oh, wait... everyone is.
I strongly suspect that the "500 million lines of code" was someone working backwards from the cost. They looked at the reported dollar amount and went "ye gods! if we admit we paid that much for 20K lines of code we'll never hold office again."
At least in some cases, it was a matter of pressing on the brake but also catching the edge of the throttle. The brake had enough travel before braking commenced, that the throttle, when pressed an equal amount, gave the engine enough gas to overcome the brake. Reflex is to press harder, which makes the problem worse.
Test by: All cases involved an automatic transmission. The problem didn't materialize in manual transmissions because drivers have generally been trained to press the clutch and brake at the same time.
It's easy to blame incompetence, but sometimes it really is -- not a bad design -- (having the brake and throttle close together is helpful if you're trained to use the arrangement correctly) but a design that is more prone to error in a population that does not get that kind of training. Even engineers need to know their audience.
Incidentally, I nearly made this mistake in my truck (also an automatic) last weekend. Pressed on the brake in the parking garage and the vehicle accelerated. I had lazily pushed on the right side of the brake pedal and the edge of my boot had caught on the edge of the throttle. I quickly raised my foot and brought it down square on the brake pedal, avoided a fender bender. Entirely my fault. But in the Audi case, the arrangement of the pedals made this type of occurrence likely enough that a reasonable person would consider it dangerous.
> And that real cause was? Verified by empirical data?
Um, ok. It's not hard to find.
As I recall, the problem in the Audi case was having the brake and throttle too close together. Fine for heel/toe operations by an experienced race driver, bad for casual drivers.
> The biggest shame is that this comes as a surprise to so many of them AFTER they've graduated.
I think it's a matter of denial. Being in humanities is comfortable. You learn the process of being at university and the process of making your professors happy and the process of negotiating a doctorate, and the rest is social mixers and waking up in the park naked with no idea how you got there. (This isn't just me, is it?) If you're getting a full ride, there's a tendency, I think, to just enjoy the trip and not worry about what you're actually going to do with your life until the subject becomes urgent.
If we fix humanities (assuming it could be done at all) we would not have the humanities PHD to make fun of anymore.
My opinion, the F-35 will always be in beta. The design and procurement process is fundamentally broken. That being the case, they might as well buy now; it's not gonna get any better.
On the same page at the same time, "AT&T To Use Phone Geolocation To Prevent Credit Card Fraud" (the example for which was credit card transactions in Russia) and "AT&T Charges $750 For One Minute of International Data Roaming". That's brilliant.
My old smart phone holster wore out recently, so I bought a new one. This one has a convenient extra pocket for credit cards and other forms of ID. It seems to me that putting your ID, credit cards, and your phone all in one conveniently stealable container might not be the brightest thing to do. All it needs is a key ring...
> some of it is turning into stone.
Recycling!
When the information so clearlyy calls for it.
H'mm ... that's approx 6 parts per machine per working day.
Not much of a story here, just PR.
Enh, perhaps. The story for me was this:
> Ford has been using 3D printing for rapid prototyping since the mid-1980s
Think of how recently 3D printing has entered common consciousness. Back in the eighties, I managed projects that involved (amongst many other things) creating custom parts via lost wax casting. And I had never heard of 3D printing at the time except as a joke in rec.humor. (The Xerox 3d printer is a great achievement, but the apple tastes of toner. That time the service guy was fixing it when someone accidentally turned it on -- the arm it spat out wrecked the copy room and had to be beaten into submission by security guards.)
Does this count? In bed at 3:00 AM, walking a nighttime operator through opening a script in VI and reading the code to me, (I hadn't written it) spotting the bug, and walking him through correcting the code. He had never written a program before, and I'm pretty sure he had never used VI before. It takes a lot of patience and someone who can listen and follow directions, but it's definitely doable.
Your story is better, but I wanted to say, I once wrote a test script for the company's sales force in Australia. He asked what I wanted for it. I said send me some vegemite. (I'd heard of it, but never tried it.)
I'm hooked on the stuff now, (the secret is not to put on too much -- just a taste) and since I don't work for that company anymore, I have to buy the stuff online. It takes almost a month to get here. And the cheesybite for some reason takes even longer.
And it will be Fresh and New, because consumers will have been running something else.
> and someone decided it wasn't economical to buy a newer version of Windows
That's a significant reason. Or, the newer version of windows won't run on the old (but still adequate) hardware, for whatever reason -- drivers, or lack of sufficient grunt.
Why does it need a pilot?