To be fair, each neuron is probably doing some mathematical function (in the form of a series of chemical reactions) and then passing the results to the next neuron. The end result is the same as an analog computer performing some hard-wired calculus function. In the end we are arguing semantics, not what is happening in actual fact. I'm much less interested in how each Slashdotter defines "calculus" and much more interested in how fruit flies do so much with so few neurons.
There are a couple of possibilities. It is entirely possible that the very smart people working on Watson recognized some overlap between the two problem sets and recognized that they could apply lessons learned to this new goal. It is also entirely possible that marketing decided to "cure cancer" and paid very little heed to what Watson did in the past.
It is entirely possible that neither of our experiences represents the true "average".
I can assure you that fear (either for physical safety or simply for harassment) is often a motivation for why proper documentation does not happen. My very good friend has been a victim of physical intimidation. My wife and her co-workers have been harassed through mass, bogus grievances after going through proper documentation channels. The savvy managers simply track when the bad eggs come in each day. Fortunately, everyone has a few late days and too many violates the contract. Quite obviously, this kind of bullshit leads to mutual suspicion and a terrible work environment all around. Of course, I'm in a union-friendly city (Philadelphia). The feds just arrested a bunch of thugs for vandalizing a church that was being constructed with non-union labor.
Now, I'm not necessarily anti-union in concept - just as I am not anti-corporation in concept. But this shit has got to change. Corporations and unions are both out of control - two sides of the same corrupt coin. We need reform of money entering the public system from such organizations, and physical violence and intimidation is straight-up no good.
If a lousy worker is being kept around it is because a manager somewhere is too lazy to do their job and get rid of the worker.
Usually it is very, very difficult to dismiss a bad worker. You have to get them on some kind of technicality that is written into the union contract. For instance, an orderly at a hospital who is not doing their job is instead fired for showing up late.
Union members will also gang up on a non-union complainant. If you file a complaint about the orderly from my above example, you are likely to have a bunch of grievances filed against you, even though they are unjustified.
I'd rather we just abolished corporate tax and treated capital gains (and dividends) as regular income. Corporate tax does not generate enough revenue to justify all this crap - we could easily make up the shortfall by taxing the owners and employees.
I'd be a lot more in favor of being represented by a union if they didn't seem so hell-bent on protecting the weakest of the herd. Some people genuinely need to go, and they do all members a disservice by keeping the slackers and idiots on. It's bad enough that many of the best (for certain definitions of best) get sucked into management. I'd like to see unions represent a counterbalance to corporate power - not as an organization for protecting idiots.
I use both Google Docs and OpenOffice/LibreOffice. When I use OO/LO, I usually use it with Dropbox to simulate some of the convenience of Google Docs. As you say, sometimes you want your files with or without the internet.
Of course, I also need to have MS Office installed, so the use of any other office suite is a bit superfluous. Still, I try to keep my stuff in open formats so there is less to convert down the road.
Keep it all in a 2d plane with grates on it, like a bug zapper. I haven't heard of any bug zapper deaths, though I have faith that the crowd here at Slashdot will find an example.
Well, the disappointment for me is that Newegg stuff usually comes in a day or two, since they have a big-ass warehouse about an hour and a half away in Jersey. Seeing it go to Kentucky and taking like 8 days was a bit depressing.
When I lived in Manhattan, I would sometimes get Newegg stuff delivered on the same day that I ordered it.
I'm not talking shit - I went to a school with no football team. It was a good school and didn't cost any more than other schools in the same class. Many other very good colleges have football teams that are division 3 team and have nowhere near the importance to the school. Finding a school with a football team that sucks (and thus has less support) is trivial. If you don't like jocks and a football culture, for God's sake don't go to Penn State main campus.
On the high school point, you are correct - but "having a football team" is pretty low on the list of problems in this nation's public schools. I'm sorry that it hurt you on a personal level, but understand that many kids don't even have a safe environment. Even your situation, from the limited amount you have told me, has more to do with bullying than football worship. If we could change the sports worship and change it so that smart kids are exalted but bullying is accepted , that will just mean that different kids get bullied.
So it sounds like you don't have an objection to death/estate/inheritance tax per se, just the way it is implemented. If you had simply had the net $100,000 of the estate taxed as regular income to the beneficiaries, would that have been reasonable? I'm having a little trouble understanding some of the comments in this thread that seem to be OK with someone getting income but not having to pay taxes on it at all.
It's hard to see that completely overturned to the point of bankruptcy by the dinosaurs running the traditional car companies.
Here we are into pure speculation... but if you'll indulge me... it's true that Tesla has executed very well, but the fact is that they only produce two models, and the most popular model only sells 7000 units per quarter. Scaling up to the size of even a niche player like BMW means ramping up production about 70x. My analysis could be flawed or naive, but it seems to me that a company like BMW should find it much simpler to squish an electric motor into their product while retaining quality than Tesla will find it to ramp production by such an amount while retaining quality. I wish them luck, because frankly I like Tesla - but I don't think they will be successful in the long term. Lexus (Toyota!), BMW, and Mercedes will eat their lunch when electric demand improves.
Presuming that price is set by the market, they would have to maintain prices, which means giving up $7500 per vehicle. Assuming that they keep the 7000 unit per quarter pace, that's a loss of $52 million vs last year.
Their other option is to hold the price steady and lose sales, which would also hurt revenue.
Tesla, in addition to being subsidized per-car directly also gets environmental credits from the government which they can then resell to other automakers. This is another subsidy. As you say, the subsidies are there for a reason and the fact that Tesla can exist at all is proof that they are working on some level. I'm not really casting any judgement on the wisdom of these subsidies... I'm suspicious of them but time will tell. But the fact is that Tesla has no viable business model without government help. Even with government help, I'm a bit pessimistic about their future. The instant battery technology can make these things viable to the mass market, they will have very strong competition. Even today, where almost no one can justify an electric car economically, they have competition at the lower end from several other traditional car makers.
No, the phone system is a network of compatible and standardized endpoints. No one really cares how they are connected, just like no one would care if Facebook didn't use the internet. I think the phone system is a pretty good example.
While I strongly feel that imported gasoline should be taxed to reflect its true cost, I have to disagree with you on your Exxon analogy. Oil would be profitable with or without government tax breaks. Only the "where" they choose to drill would change. Tesla is royally f'd if the feds discontinue the electric car tax credit, as it would completely destroy the already tortured calculus involved with total cost of ownership.
Of course I want instant gratification - that's the whole point of convenience. The sad fact is that I can get a better product for free than anything I can pay for.
Then why do I willingly pay for both Netflix and Prime? Those services are extremely convenient, but the selection is not always there. Usenet/torrent are good fill-ins for those services, and probably will be until these knuckleheads realize that their government-enabled monopoly isn't really very enforceable anymore.
I agree it is all taxes. But my point was that requiring the attendant to pump your gas doesn't actually cost anything. In fact it is cheaper, whatever the "real" reason. Gas buyers are better off in Jersey than in us neighboring states.
Slashdot Mirror
To be fair, each neuron is probably doing some mathematical function (in the form of a series of chemical reactions) and then passing the results to the next neuron. The end result is the same as an analog computer performing some hard-wired calculus function. In the end we are arguing semantics, not what is happening in actual fact. I'm much less interested in how each Slashdotter defines "calculus" and much more interested in how fruit flies do so much with so few neurons.
There are a couple of possibilities. It is entirely possible that the very smart people working on Watson recognized some overlap between the two problem sets and recognized that they could apply lessons learned to this new goal. It is also entirely possible that marketing decided to "cure cancer" and paid very little heed to what Watson did in the past.
It is entirely possible that neither of our experiences represents the true "average".
I can assure you that fear (either for physical safety or simply for harassment) is often a motivation for why proper documentation does not happen. My very good friend has been a victim of physical intimidation. My wife and her co-workers have been harassed through mass, bogus grievances after going through proper documentation channels. The savvy managers simply track when the bad eggs come in each day. Fortunately, everyone has a few late days and too many violates the contract. Quite obviously, this kind of bullshit leads to mutual suspicion and a terrible work environment all around. Of course, I'm in a union-friendly city (Philadelphia). The feds just arrested a bunch of thugs for vandalizing a church that was being constructed with non-union labor.
Now, I'm not necessarily anti-union in concept - just as I am not anti-corporation in concept. But this shit has got to change. Corporations and unions are both out of control - two sides of the same corrupt coin. We need reform of money entering the public system from such organizations, and physical violence and intimidation is straight-up no good.
If a lousy worker is being kept around it is because a manager somewhere is too lazy to do their job and get rid of the worker.
Usually it is very, very difficult to dismiss a bad worker. You have to get them on some kind of technicality that is written into the union contract. For instance, an orderly at a hospital who is not doing their job is instead fired for showing up late.
Union members will also gang up on a non-union complainant. If you file a complaint about the orderly from my above example, you are likely to have a bunch of grievances filed against you, even though they are unjustified.
The system is broken.
I'd rather we just abolished corporate tax and treated capital gains (and dividends) as regular income. Corporate tax does not generate enough revenue to justify all this crap - we could easily make up the shortfall by taxing the owners and employees.
I'd be a lot more in favor of being represented by a union if they didn't seem so hell-bent on protecting the weakest of the herd. Some people genuinely need to go, and they do all members a disservice by keeping the slackers and idiots on. It's bad enough that many of the best (for certain definitions of best) get sucked into management. I'd like to see unions represent a counterbalance to corporate power - not as an organization for protecting idiots.
LOL, I was going to post the same thing. Union boss can't get a piece of donations!
I use both Google Docs and OpenOffice/LibreOffice. When I use OO/LO, I usually use it with Dropbox to simulate some of the convenience of Google Docs. As you say, sometimes you want your files with or without the internet.
Of course, I also need to have MS Office installed, so the use of any other office suite is a bit superfluous. Still, I try to keep my stuff in open formats so there is less to convert down the road.
Which, obviously, the government could not possibly access.
Keep it all in a 2d plane with grates on it, like a bug zapper. I haven't heard of any bug zapper deaths, though I have faith that the crowd here at Slashdot will find an example.
The bucket holds four drops.
Yes, my wife is from near the equator and they only have the "wet" and "dry" seasons. I suppose they also observe hurricane season :)
Wow, that is screwy.
Well, the disappointment for me is that Newegg stuff usually comes in a day or two, since they have a big-ass warehouse about an hour and a half away in Jersey. Seeing it go to Kentucky and taking like 8 days was a bit depressing.
When I lived in Manhattan, I would sometimes get Newegg stuff delivered on the same day that I ordered it.
Disappointing, I know. It's like the first time I saw the audience option fail on "Millionaire".
I don't think "spring" has a standardized or universal definition. There is certainly no "official start of spring" or other such nonsense. I believe the National Weather Service in the US goes with March 1. Austrailia seems to agree, though obviously it is swapped with autumn down under. The UK seems to "officially" recognize both the astronomical and traditional definitions.
I'm not talking shit - I went to a school with no football team. It was a good school and didn't cost any more than other schools in the same class. Many other very good colleges have football teams that are division 3 team and have nowhere near the importance to the school. Finding a school with a football team that sucks (and thus has less support) is trivial. If you don't like jocks and a football culture, for God's sake don't go to Penn State main campus.
On the high school point, you are correct - but "having a football team" is pretty low on the list of problems in this nation's public schools. I'm sorry that it hurt you on a personal level, but understand that many kids don't even have a safe environment. Even your situation, from the limited amount you have told me, has more to do with bullying than football worship. If we could change the sports worship and change it so that smart kids are exalted but bullying is accepted , that will just mean that different kids get bullied.
So it sounds like you don't have an objection to death/estate/inheritance tax per se, just the way it is implemented. If you had simply had the net $100,000 of the estate taxed as regular income to the beneficiaries, would that have been reasonable? I'm having a little trouble understanding some of the comments in this thread that seem to be OK with someone getting income but not having to pay taxes on it at all.
You could have picked a school without a football program.
It's hard to see that completely overturned to the point of bankruptcy by the dinosaurs running the traditional car companies.
Here we are into pure speculation... but if you'll indulge me... it's true that Tesla has executed very well, but the fact is that they only produce two models, and the most popular model only sells 7000 units per quarter. Scaling up to the size of even a niche player like BMW means ramping up production about 70x. My analysis could be flawed or naive, but it seems to me that a company like BMW should find it much simpler to squish an electric motor into their product while retaining quality than Tesla will find it to ramp production by such an amount while retaining quality. I wish them luck, because frankly I like Tesla - but I don't think they will be successful in the long term. Lexus (Toyota!), BMW, and Mercedes will eat their lunch when electric demand improves.
Presuming that price is set by the market, they would have to maintain prices, which means giving up $7500 per vehicle. Assuming that they keep the 7000 unit per quarter pace, that's a loss of $52 million vs last year.
Their other option is to hold the price steady and lose sales, which would also hurt revenue.
Tesla, in addition to being subsidized per-car directly also gets environmental credits from the government which they can then resell to other automakers. This is another subsidy. As you say, the subsidies are there for a reason and the fact that Tesla can exist at all is proof that they are working on some level. I'm not really casting any judgement on the wisdom of these subsidies... I'm suspicious of them but time will tell. But the fact is that Tesla has no viable business model without government help. Even with government help, I'm a bit pessimistic about their future. The instant battery technology can make these things viable to the mass market, they will have very strong competition. Even today, where almost no one can justify an electric car economically, they have competition at the lower end from several other traditional car makers.
No, the phone system is a network of compatible and standardized endpoints. No one really cares how they are connected, just like no one would care if Facebook didn't use the internet. I think the phone system is a pretty good example.
While I strongly feel that imported gasoline should be taxed to reflect its true cost, I have to disagree with you on your Exxon analogy. Oil would be profitable with or without government tax breaks. Only the "where" they choose to drill would change. Tesla is royally f'd if the feds discontinue the electric car tax credit, as it would completely destroy the already tortured calculus involved with total cost of ownership.
Of course I want instant gratification - that's the whole point of convenience. The sad fact is that I can get a better product for free than anything I can pay for.
Then why do I willingly pay for both Netflix and Prime? Those services are extremely convenient, but the selection is not always there. Usenet/torrent are good fill-ins for those services, and probably will be until these knuckleheads realize that their government-enabled monopoly isn't really very enforceable anymore.
I agree it is all taxes. But my point was that requiring the attendant to pump your gas doesn't actually cost anything. In fact it is cheaper, whatever the "real" reason. Gas buyers are better off in Jersey than in us neighboring states.