Buses are not the problem. The problem is Trucks. "Warehouses on Wheels" is the trend that has been going on for several decades now. There are less actual warehouses for product distribution than there are just actually trucks constantly driving around. Companies have essentially shifted the costs of maintaining distribution centers and product as asset liability for the most part onto tax payers by the modern usage of trucks and just in time delivery. The solution of course is to tax the companies doing the destruction, essentially abusing the tax system for profit. Then again any tax on business is politically inevitably spun into "bad for jobs" which is a tough sell.
Constant unceasing trucking is what destroys roads constantly requiring more frequent maintenance and refurbishment.
"We cannot guarantee 10 years for example, because it would mean doing those trials and tests BEFORE releasing the product."
So what?
We can seeming do this more less for nice whiskey, you'd think perhaps it might be possible for life saving drugs. Also what is to stop you from doing the tests after the product has released (with an initial expiry date), and updating the expiry date occasionally as you go...
I agree with everything you say (though I'm making the assumption you know about the geography etc...).
However I'll give you another reason why additional hydro locations are difficult to find. It is the same reason that the US (and others) lack a lot of off shore wind power. NIMBY. Creating new hydro locations is disruptive, and you will get a lot of opposition, enough to basically make it unfeasible. Sure geographically it might make sense, and it might make sense from a generating standpoint, however if it appears that it is traditional native lands, home to the rare top hat grasshopper, close to cottagers, or any of about an infinite number of things that people can get upset about, it will be hard pressed to move forward. These things typically take up a lot of real estate, and heck you will get people from across the country without any skin in the actual game raising concerns about of it will effect ground water levels, and possible safety issues, etc... So it might be better to say that most of the EASY hydro locations have already been developed, and it just isn't worthwhile trying to do anymore (particularly as you say with the availability of coal and gas generation which you can spin up on pretty short notice).
Then again if you're China you just make a huge one and relocate everyone anyway, but not so easy in democracies.
From my understanding, panels don't really fail, other than in some pretty unique cases (i.e. a physical accident etc...), and no the lifetime is no where near 45-100 years. The "lifetime" of a panel is 10-25 years, with likely most falling into the 15-20 year time span. This is also the reason why you see renewable energy companies signing 20 year energy contracts, as it more less basically covers the lifespan (and cost) of their hardware. The "lifespan" is more of a reflection (sorry pardon pun) of effectiveness, which lowers each year, more less exponentially as the panel ages until you get to a point where the percentage of efficiency is such that it does't make much sense to keep maintaining the panel anymore from a business standpoint (that threshold can depend on what tolerances the company/site has some may try to milk out as much as they can, however will likely have to compromise in that they will have a contract stipulating they must supply at least XXX MW, and the less efficient your panels, the less power produced).
Those first array's were composed of large concave (or is it convex) panels, which while worked quite well, were difficult to replace as the age. Most new modern array's are made is many many smaller "large flat screen TV sized" panels, which can be swapped out as need be (as their efficiency drops, which can be directly measured centrally, and sending out technicians to do the work on panel R123A23P5 or whatever). So from your example, sure the ARRAY can more less be around indefinitely, however the individual panels will more less all be switched out on an approximately 20 year cycle.
It would make little sense from a distribution standpoint either. Unless everything is converting to DC (of which I am not even sure if that would matter), the current (pardon pun) method of AC and how it is distributed would increase the amount necessary as to make it unreasonable. I think Musk is just trying to make a mental point of things, not a realistic proposal.
It would make much more sense to either have it TOTAL distributed (i.e. by household), or at the very least much more distributed that even the current (again) structure of large plants servicing large areas, it should be many smaller stations clustered around population centers (i.e. were most of the power is actually used). Sure this would me much more distributed maintenance and cost, but you could probably privatize a lot of that, and create a lot of good paying, not too complicated jobs for folks to go around, checking systems, changing out batteries and panels etc...
Well not really "Android" per se, I should have just said "Google" generically. It could be Chrome, though I think I've heard that Google is creating a new OS called Fuchsia apparently (not a big fan of the name really), which I know little about, but could be the next big thing.
MS is rather entrenched, so it is pretty hard to unseat them. That said a big reason for that is the business and corporate install base, and having been involved in the last couple transitions, I don't think there is a whole lot of love lost between corporate IT departments and MS since Windows 7. I think a lot of large organizations are experiencing Windows fatigue, and if another viable option were to present themselves in the next couple upgrade cycles it would get a hard serious look from many.
1) I'd disagree that the PC Desktop is a dead market. It has slowed because it is more of a niche market now, in that it is only dominated by those that need something for games (small market size in the grand scheme of things), and those that need a workstation for work (also small market size, indeed I'm using a "workstation" laptop now, which isn't really quite a workstation, but is good enough for my purposes). The rest has been taken over for the most part by low end laptops for consumer use.
2) Your second point is bang on, though I would perhaps add another "Distant" to that considering the recent news regarding Windows phones. MS attempt into the mobile market of phones and tablets is a pretty resounding failure. Having changed their OS design almost exclusively for this purpose (and XBOX to a certain degree), I think can also be viewed as a colossal failure. Too many BA's with "convergence" buzzwords, and not enough BSc's brave enough to speak up and say "hey that is a really stupid idea".
What is alarming is that the BA to BSc ratio seems to be about the same with the whole new business "strategy" driving "innovation" to subscriptions in Office 365, and seemingly Windows subscriptions (though MS seems to waffle about this a lot, currently I think they are saying it is future of corporate licencing at least if not consumer, we'll see). Anyway MS better watch their P's and Q's as they have been dropping the ball for the better part of a decade now (at least as far as OS is concerned), and while I don't ever really see Apple taking over (if only because they seem to enjoy being a niche product), I do not see Android having any such compunctions for their future. For years the whole Slashdot meme "Year of the Linux Desktop" has been a thing, it very well may come to fruition in the somewhat near future (sort of) depending on what Google decides to do with the potential opportunity.
Everyone seems to be mentioning Windows XP and 7, arguably some of Windows better work. Everyone seems to be forgetting Vista, 8, and 8.1 that shall we say, were not so great.
Compared to those, Windows 10 is a quite decent OS. Personally I didn't mind Vista so much, though it certainly did have a lot of compatibility issues, but I think that was more so because it was the first to follow XP which had been around for so long (and the transition was rushed with hardware folks due to MS development/deployment deadlines).
As far as Windows 10 goes, sure the APP thing is stupid, as is the whole Cortana thing, but all of that was A) MS misguided attempt to follow apple into the mobile market (and to a certain extent their own XBOX environment) and misapplied buzzwords such as "convergence" (and a holdover from the failure of 8 and 8.1), and B) you don't actually have to use any of those "features" and indeed, I like most people just ignore them. Perhaps in the next version they'll realize that the gains that had hoped to make through consolidation are not being realized because a PC or even a Laptop are not a gaming console, or a phone, or a tablet. They have different interfaces, users, uses, and trying to build one thing to fit them all is doomed to failure (the F35 seems like another case study on this paradigm). Case in point, how is that whole Windows phone thing working out for them these days...
Or any charges in fact. Another common one are gym memberships. I had one that after an initial sign up of a couple months, continued to charge me every month for almost a year. When I called them on it, they tried to say that it was all legit, and that they were entitled, and that I needed to write them a letter to cancel... After I reviewed the relevant legislation myself, I threatened to sue them, and pointed out while they owed me hundreds of dollars, the penalty for this particular violation of the legislation was up to 50,000$. They continued to make assertions that it was all in my contact, and that it was all my fault. I ask to see my contact, to which they refused. I then wrote a letter (delivered with a witness) demanding that they produce my contact within a week, or otherwise I was taking them to court. They of course had no contact and I got a check in the mail for the full amount. While this was peanuts compared to things like student loans, the principle is the same. They will just keep doing what they are doing unless they are really challenged on it, and they know that many/most will not, and just pay the bill.
1) At 58% that is a bit misleading for anything but very low values for "Most"... (i.e. 8% above "half")
2) Considering the amount of for profit colleges in the US, and all that entails, they are likely quite right in that it is very much a negative impact on the nation. Has nothing to do with politics or view points however and more to do with them ripping off taxpayers by gaming the loan system to the tune of trillions of dollars, while at the same time indebting the population with little or no educational benefit. Parasitical might be the best term to use.
Sounds like the plot line of the next zombie movie.
We thought we were helping humanity. It was supposed to eliminate the zika virus. It started with the mutated rage skeeters. However once the human hosts got infected, things got bad, very bad. Living on an apiary we though we were protected, we had suits... but what was to follow was, well worse. There is word that Google Corp has save zone, we're not sure where it is, but we're going to try and find it... Wish us luck...
As mentioned in another post, Germany was it's own worst enemy in it's decision to invade the USSR. Statistically speaking the USSR more less single handedly defeated Germany by itself. While they suffered horrific losses, they also did the same in that 3/4 of the German losses were to the USSR (though numerically the USSR lost way more). So it really wasn't much of a team effort at all (at least in the purely statistical sense).
However on the other side against Japan, that was much more of a "team" effort, in that the Japanese losses were more equally distributed. However at the same time China was by far the one who suffered the brunt of it with something like 90% of the allied losses much like the USSR.
While quite interesting from a historical point of view, most of that is literally ancient history and not really relevant to the modern conversation. Not to mention that politically, militarily, etc... much changed within France during that long time period. Heck Portugal and the Dutch used to be powerhouses back in the day.
Anyway more pertinent to the parents comment is the fact that outside of the Hollywood propaganda machine, it is quite obvious for anyone who studies history that while the US played a big role in supplying it's allies (and to a certain extent exploiting them to the point of crippling their recovery from the war with massive debt), the nation that had by far the biggest impact in winning the war was decidedly the USSR. Though I guess one could argue that the Germans themselves had the biggest impact in their loss by their decision to invade the USSR in the first place. Not only did the USSR suffer more losses than anyone else, they also inflicted more than all the other allies combined... by a factor of 2. If you include missing/injured/pows, that number increases to 3/4 of all German losses attributed to the USSR. So if you think about it, as much as the Western allies like to make a big deal about their contribution to world war 2, in reality they played a pretty minor role. In fact, it could really only be called a "world war" by the fact that so many nations were dragged into it, and that geographically there were conflicts all over the world, but in practice this was a war that was decided between Germany and the USSR for the most part. Now there are a number of sources statistically that measure things slightly different, but the basic premise is the same.
Indeed if you to the other front and Japanese casualties you see a different picture. For whatever reason, statistically it is much more difficult to find numbers, however from what I can see it is a much more equal distribution with about 1/3 from the US, 1/3 from China, and 1/3 from "other" (British/Dutch/Aussies/USSR). So while the US did as much as many of their allies collectively, China did the same. However looking at allied losses, they are almost all statistically speaking (i.e. by like a factor of 10) come from China. So on the Pacific front one might argue that the US had a much larger contribution and impact, but again it is pretty obvious that China really took the brunt of it.
Anyway after all that, perhaps instead of the saying about the victors writing history, it might be revised to the victors who create the most popular movies influencing popular opinion... As the history (though perhaps even biased) is out there for those that care to look for it, though most do not, and just believe whatever fanciful viewpoint that is presented to them that the most wish to see. I don't recall too many movies about the USSR and China taking on Germany and Japan, while a bunch of allies helped them out a bit. Also it is worth noting that the US was very late to the Pacific theater as well as China was a war with Japan for many years already at that point.
As someone who would have put themselves in the "enthusiast" category, I can say that many (if not most) who've been around the block wouldn't use a benchmark utility in the first place.
While synthetic benchmarks might give you a real general sense of performance they are at best poor, and at worst, terrible. I recall not only benchmark companies cheating, but in additional the graphic card companies cheating. Optimizing card performance for benchmarks rather than for real life situations.
It will never happen. At least not for a very very very long time. We have many places on earth that are not possible to be independent right now that are magnitudes easier and more habitable.
If they really want to play around, they should try it here on earth first as a proof of concept, preferably long term. The whole failed biodome experiment being a good example. Heck, put in the the Arctic or Antarctic and see how it fairs, or even just a very harsh remote region. Probably also be magnitudes cheaper to try that anyway. Heck turn it into a reality show and maybe it'll pay for itself these days...
Also on the whole poverty issue (and UBI really), is that I'd say if Canada did a better job addressing addiction and mental health that would probably account for 2/3 of the issue. For the remaining 1/3 (of non-addicted, mentally well people), things like a better back to work/education opportunities/business growth policies would probably solve half of those again. For the rest, there is probably little anyone is going to do about it... might as well UBI, as a society we'll be paying for it one way or another anyway. For me one the saddest part of our society is that so many mentally ill folks without strong family support structures get left behind it seems.
I also live in Canada. Though I always thought it silly that dental and eyes are not covered (haven't had to worry about ears yet). If you look at the market, those are also where people get gouged, largely because of monopolistic professional organizations. My glasses are about 800$, and there isn't much I can do about it, even shopping around. Ditto with dental, you pay what they tell you to pay and you have little choice but to go without. Some employers have benefits for those which help, but many people do not. I always like the example that someone could come punch me in the face and knock out a tooth, and I'm on hook for paying for it, while if he broke his hand doing so, it would be covered by universal health care. Just using as an example, and I know you could sue the guy for for the cost, however at the same time the idiots that would likely do something like that are not going to have any assets to sue for anyway making it moot. Of course rather than including them in the universal system they could fix the problem and regulate it more, but then again is that more or less difficult/expensive.
My other beef with the system is medication. Not so much that it isn't free, but more so that it isn't universal. It is managed at the provincial level which is silly. I know there have been various federal politicians that have promised to do something about it by doing national bulk purchasing from suppliers, but so far it hasn't happened. There are plenty of instances where a particular drug is available in one province, but not another, meaning you either have to use something different, more expensive, or move someplace that has it. Case in point my sister required medication in our home province, but the inexpensive version wasn't available. My parents figured out that the a University covered it under their student plan, and it was cheaper to enroll my sister in university so she could get the drug (with the spin off of additional education I suppose) than to simply pay for it, so she was a professional student for a time. Anyway how medications are handled in Canada could really use some standardization and modernization, particularly with much of our population aging and going to require more in the way of medications in the foreseeable future.
I think it is pretty simple. Most developed countries have declining birth rates to the point of population decline, this is for a variety of reasons, many of which you mention. Japan might be slightly worse for a few cultural reasons, but not by much likely. However most developed countries augment their population loss with immigration, typically from less developed countries which have less of those factors and thus a higher birthrate. As someone mentioned in a post Japan culturally is also pretty xenophobic to the point of racism. This likely discourages a lot of immigration, and those that do, perhaps do not ever really feel welcome and eventually leave. That likely has a much bigger impact on their population than anything else. That is a tough trait to overcome if its been ingrained for so long.
On the other comment of China, they have their own challenges. They are also getting very top heavy on the demographic chart, which will hit a tipping point sometime. Additionally their whole 1 child policy from years ago, and the preference for boys during that period of time, skews the middle of their demographic chart insofar as genders go, which is going to also have an impact on their future (i.e. number of couples and births). While on one side their population is so large that it sort of has it's own momentum, however being so massive also magnifies many of their challenges. Anyway it will be interesting to see what happens over the next 20 years and how China manages it. On the plus side (sort of) being a centralized government that isn't really democratic they are able to institute large policy programs to attempt to resolve their issues that would be impossible to implement in other countries. That said, like the afore mentioned 1 child policy the future ramifications might not be fully understood until much later...
While it is a generalization and doesn't apply to all women, it does apply to many women.
The inability to distinguish reality from fiction and the preferences of ridiculous romantic comedies (or romantic dramas, or anything "romantic" really) and the likes of Sex in the City etc... is ruining a lot of women. Where basically their expectations are set so high, and so one sided, that eventually even the most patient male is going to get pretty frustrated. It is the time old tale of the "princess" story but retold over and over again. From Cinderella, when they were a kid, from Pretty Woman years ago, to the latest 50 shades of grey etc... Always involve some poor woman getting swept off her feet by some prince or billionaire (millionaire is no good anymore apparently) for some arbitrary reason. Oh and now the billionaire is also somehow in his late twenties or early 30's and apparently also goes to the gym 5 times a week, but yet somehow finds the time (between earning billions, and working out so much) to spend every waking minute with the girl spoiling her with gifts and extravagant lifestyle. Anyway it is all so silly. I guess a normal, healthy relationship that is an equal partnership between two people that respect each other doesn't make for an entertaining story... but it would certainly give women something much more realistic (and better) to aspire to.
I know I've actually said "You know that is fiction right? That it isn't real?" to which the response is "But so much of it is so true...". Uh huh. And before someone tries to defend Sex in the City (which might be odd for Slashdot) in saying that some of the stories aren't like that, they also feature 4 women that just happen to be millionaires themselves apparently living in NYC, while doing seemingly no work, though one is a writer and another a lawyer... To which I would ask are you also a successful millionaire fashion writer in her 30's living in NYC, because if you're not, it doesn't really apply to you.
Then there is the whole body image thing, particularly in movies now. Every guy is ripped. "Why can't you look like that"? That is his job. He is getting paid millions of dollars to get a trainer and work out constantly for like a year for that brief 5 second spot on that movie. However if you go to the gym a lot, you're never spending any time with them because "you're always at the gym". Anyway, a general absence of reality in many cases, you literally can't win when a warped reality is against you.
Can they not just call it something different, is it just me or do those name hurt your head, more so when trying to tell the difference between the two or which one is which... ugh.
Meh. Just call it Dark Matter and be done with it...
More seriously, though I am unsure of how reasonable it is, perhaps it is a close agglomeration of belt objects working in concert gravitationally. Even within the belt most objects, probably particularly distant ones are quite far apart relatively speaking, most space is exactly that. However if there was some event in the distant past, or even some unknown solar mechanic that might glom many of these objects close enough together that as a whole have enough gravitational pull to have their exertion noticed, yet at the same time be distant enough, and not "solid" enough to really be detected by conventional means...
Pretty much this is the problem, however the solution is not so clear, nor really linked directly to the issue at hand. Obama I think did the best he could which what he had in front of him, had he tried to do away with the insurance component, it likely would never have passed. He probably figured this was at least something that was an improvement over what currently existed.
The problem is, particularly in the US political structure is the amount of money in play within the political cycle. There is a feedback loop, where the more money say the insurance groups make, the more influence the have, the more money they make, etc... Until that cycle is broken, I can't see much change happening, because you just won't get elected.
On further thought as the the unreasonableness of the sub idea, if enough walls and such can block wifi within my house, I'd imagine a ships HULL might not be a great medium to get through, though I suppose they could launch a buoy or something... Anyway would make for a good movie scene if you can suspend some of those thoughts for awhile.
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Buses are not the problem. The problem is Trucks. "Warehouses on Wheels" is the trend that has been going on for several decades now. There are less actual warehouses for product distribution than there are just actually trucks constantly driving around. Companies have essentially shifted the costs of maintaining distribution centers and product as asset liability for the most part onto tax payers by the modern usage of trucks and just in time delivery. The solution of course is to tax the companies doing the destruction, essentially abusing the tax system for profit. Then again any tax on business is politically inevitably spun into "bad for jobs" which is a tough sell.
Constant unceasing trucking is what destroys roads constantly requiring more frequent maintenance and refurbishment.
"We cannot guarantee 10 years for example, because it would mean doing those trials and tests BEFORE releasing the product."
So what?
We can seeming do this more less for nice whiskey, you'd think perhaps it might be possible for life saving drugs. Also what is to stop you from doing the tests after the product has released (with an initial expiry date), and updating the expiry date occasionally as you go...
I agree with everything you say (though I'm making the assumption you know about the geography etc...).
However I'll give you another reason why additional hydro locations are difficult to find. It is the same reason that the US (and others) lack a lot of off shore wind power. NIMBY. Creating new hydro locations is disruptive, and you will get a lot of opposition, enough to basically make it unfeasible. Sure geographically it might make sense, and it might make sense from a generating standpoint, however if it appears that it is traditional native lands, home to the rare top hat grasshopper, close to cottagers, or any of about an infinite number of things that people can get upset about, it will be hard pressed to move forward. These things typically take up a lot of real estate, and heck you will get people from across the country without any skin in the actual game raising concerns about of it will effect ground water levels, and possible safety issues, etc... So it might be better to say that most of the EASY hydro locations have already been developed, and it just isn't worthwhile trying to do anymore (particularly as you say with the availability of coal and gas generation which you can spin up on pretty short notice).
Then again if you're China you just make a huge one and relocate everyone anyway, but not so easy in democracies.
From my understanding, panels don't really fail, other than in some pretty unique cases (i.e. a physical accident etc...), and no the lifetime is no where near 45-100 years. The "lifetime" of a panel is 10-25 years, with likely most falling into the 15-20 year time span. This is also the reason why you see renewable energy companies signing 20 year energy contracts, as it more less basically covers the lifespan (and cost) of their hardware. The "lifespan" is more of a reflection (sorry pardon pun) of effectiveness, which lowers each year, more less exponentially as the panel ages until you get to a point where the percentage of efficiency is such that it does't make much sense to keep maintaining the panel anymore from a business standpoint (that threshold can depend on what tolerances the company/site has some may try to milk out as much as they can, however will likely have to compromise in that they will have a contract stipulating they must supply at least XXX MW, and the less efficient your panels, the less power produced).
Those first array's were composed of large concave (or is it convex) panels, which while worked quite well, were difficult to replace as the age. Most new modern array's are made is many many smaller "large flat screen TV sized" panels, which can be swapped out as need be (as their efficiency drops, which can be directly measured centrally, and sending out technicians to do the work on panel R123A23P5 or whatever). So from your example, sure the ARRAY can more less be around indefinitely, however the individual panels will more less all be switched out on an approximately 20 year cycle.
Ok, just saw the FUNNY post... whatever.
It would make little sense from a distribution standpoint either. Unless everything is converting to DC (of which I am not even sure if that would matter), the current (pardon pun) method of AC and how it is distributed would increase the amount necessary as to make it unreasonable. I think Musk is just trying to make a mental point of things, not a realistic proposal.
It would make much more sense to either have it TOTAL distributed (i.e. by household), or at the very least much more distributed that even the current (again) structure of large plants servicing large areas, it should be many smaller stations clustered around population centers (i.e. were most of the power is actually used). Sure this would me much more distributed maintenance and cost, but you could probably privatize a lot of that, and create a lot of good paying, not too complicated jobs for folks to go around, checking systems, changing out batteries and panels etc...
Well not really "Android" per se, I should have just said "Google" generically. It could be Chrome, though I think I've heard that Google is creating a new OS called Fuchsia apparently (not a big fan of the name really), which I know little about, but could be the next big thing.
MS is rather entrenched, so it is pretty hard to unseat them. That said a big reason for that is the business and corporate install base, and having been involved in the last couple transitions, I don't think there is a whole lot of love lost between corporate IT departments and MS since Windows 7. I think a lot of large organizations are experiencing Windows fatigue, and if another viable option were to present themselves in the next couple upgrade cycles it would get a hard serious look from many.
1) I'd disagree that the PC Desktop is a dead market. It has slowed because it is more of a niche market now, in that it is only dominated by those that need something for games (small market size in the grand scheme of things), and those that need a workstation for work (also small market size, indeed I'm using a "workstation" laptop now, which isn't really quite a workstation, but is good enough for my purposes). The rest has been taken over for the most part by low end laptops for consumer use.
2) Your second point is bang on, though I would perhaps add another "Distant" to that considering the recent news regarding Windows phones. MS attempt into the mobile market of phones and tablets is a pretty resounding failure. Having changed their OS design almost exclusively for this purpose (and XBOX to a certain degree), I think can also be viewed as a colossal failure. Too many BA's with "convergence" buzzwords, and not enough BSc's brave enough to speak up and say "hey that is a really stupid idea".
What is alarming is that the BA to BSc ratio seems to be about the same with the whole new business "strategy" driving "innovation" to subscriptions in Office 365, and seemingly Windows subscriptions (though MS seems to waffle about this a lot, currently I think they are saying it is future of corporate licencing at least if not consumer, we'll see). Anyway MS better watch their P's and Q's as they have been dropping the ball for the better part of a decade now (at least as far as OS is concerned), and while I don't ever really see Apple taking over (if only because they seem to enjoy being a niche product), I do not see Android having any such compunctions for their future. For years the whole Slashdot meme "Year of the Linux Desktop" has been a thing, it very well may come to fruition in the somewhat near future (sort of) depending on what Google decides to do with the potential opportunity.
Everyone seems to be mentioning Windows XP and 7, arguably some of Windows better work. Everyone seems to be forgetting Vista, 8, and 8.1 that shall we say, were not so great.
Compared to those, Windows 10 is a quite decent OS. Personally I didn't mind Vista so much, though it certainly did have a lot of compatibility issues, but I think that was more so because it was the first to follow XP which had been around for so long (and the transition was rushed with hardware folks due to MS development/deployment deadlines).
As far as Windows 10 goes, sure the APP thing is stupid, as is the whole Cortana thing, but all of that was A) MS misguided attempt to follow apple into the mobile market (and to a certain extent their own XBOX environment) and misapplied buzzwords such as "convergence" (and a holdover from the failure of 8 and 8.1), and B) you don't actually have to use any of those "features" and indeed, I like most people just ignore them. Perhaps in the next version they'll realize that the gains that had hoped to make through consolidation are not being realized because a PC or even a Laptop are not a gaming console, or a phone, or a tablet. They have different interfaces, users, uses, and trying to build one thing to fit them all is doomed to failure (the F35 seems like another case study on this paradigm). Case in point, how is that whole Windows phone thing working out for them these days...
Or any charges in fact. Another common one are gym memberships. I had one that after an initial sign up of a couple months, continued to charge me every month for almost a year. When I called them on it, they tried to say that it was all legit, and that they were entitled, and that I needed to write them a letter to cancel... After I reviewed the relevant legislation myself, I threatened to sue them, and pointed out while they owed me hundreds of dollars, the penalty for this particular violation of the legislation was up to 50,000$. They continued to make assertions that it was all in my contact, and that it was all my fault. I ask to see my contact, to which they refused. I then wrote a letter (delivered with a witness) demanding that they produce my contact within a week, or otherwise I was taking them to court. They of course had no contact and I got a check in the mail for the full amount. While this was peanuts compared to things like student loans, the principle is the same. They will just keep doing what they are doing unless they are really challenged on it, and they know that many/most will not, and just pay the bill.
1) At 58% that is a bit misleading for anything but very low values for "Most"... (i.e. 8% above "half")
2) Considering the amount of for profit colleges in the US, and all that entails, they are likely quite right in that it is very much a negative impact on the nation. Has nothing to do with politics or view points however and more to do with them ripping off taxpayers by gaming the loan system to the tune of trillions of dollars, while at the same time indebting the population with little or no educational benefit. Parasitical might be the best term to use.
Sounds like the plot line of the next zombie movie.
We thought we were helping humanity. It was supposed to eliminate the zika virus. It started with the mutated rage skeeters. However once the human hosts got infected, things got bad, very bad. Living on an apiary we though we were protected, we had suits... but what was to follow was, well worse. There is word that Google Corp has save zone, we're not sure where it is, but we're going to try and find it... Wish us luck...
As mentioned in another post, Germany was it's own worst enemy in it's decision to invade the USSR. Statistically speaking the USSR more less single handedly defeated Germany by itself. While they suffered horrific losses, they also did the same in that 3/4 of the German losses were to the USSR (though numerically the USSR lost way more). So it really wasn't much of a team effort at all (at least in the purely statistical sense).
However on the other side against Japan, that was much more of a "team" effort, in that the Japanese losses were more equally distributed. However at the same time China was by far the one who suffered the brunt of it with something like 90% of the allied losses much like the USSR.
Kind of puts Hollywood really into perspective.
While quite interesting from a historical point of view, most of that is literally ancient history and not really relevant to the modern conversation. Not to mention that politically, militarily, etc... much changed within France during that long time period. Heck Portugal and the Dutch used to be powerhouses back in the day.
Anyway more pertinent to the parents comment is the fact that outside of the Hollywood propaganda machine, it is quite obvious for anyone who studies history that while the US played a big role in supplying it's allies (and to a certain extent exploiting them to the point of crippling their recovery from the war with massive debt), the nation that had by far the biggest impact in winning the war was decidedly the USSR. Though I guess one could argue that the Germans themselves had the biggest impact in their loss by their decision to invade the USSR in the first place. Not only did the USSR suffer more losses than anyone else, they also inflicted more than all the other allies combined... by a factor of 2. If you include missing/injured/pows, that number increases to 3/4 of all German losses attributed to the USSR. So if you think about it, as much as the Western allies like to make a big deal about their contribution to world war 2, in reality they played a pretty minor role. In fact, it could really only be called a "world war" by the fact that so many nations were dragged into it, and that geographically there were conflicts all over the world, but in practice this was a war that was decided between Germany and the USSR for the most part. Now there are a number of sources statistically that measure things slightly different, but the basic premise is the same.
Indeed if you to the other front and Japanese casualties you see a different picture. For whatever reason, statistically it is much more difficult to find numbers, however from what I can see it is a much more equal distribution with about 1/3 from the US, 1/3 from China, and 1/3 from "other" (British/Dutch/Aussies/USSR). So while the US did as much as many of their allies collectively, China did the same. However looking at allied losses, they are almost all statistically speaking (i.e. by like a factor of 10) come from China. So on the Pacific front one might argue that the US had a much larger contribution and impact, but again it is pretty obvious that China really took the brunt of it.
Anyway after all that, perhaps instead of the saying about the victors writing history, it might be revised to the victors who create the most popular movies influencing popular opinion... As the history (though perhaps even biased) is out there for those that care to look for it, though most do not, and just believe whatever fanciful viewpoint that is presented to them that the most wish to see. I don't recall too many movies about the USSR and China taking on Germany and Japan, while a bunch of allies helped them out a bit. Also it is worth noting that the US was very late to the Pacific theater as well as China was a war with Japan for many years already at that point.
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As someone who would have put themselves in the "enthusiast" category, I can say that many (if not most) who've been around the block wouldn't use a benchmark utility in the first place.
While synthetic benchmarks might give you a real general sense of performance they are at best poor, and at worst, terrible. I recall not only benchmark companies cheating, but in additional the graphic card companies cheating. Optimizing card performance for benchmarks rather than for real life situations.
Anyway, as you said, good for AMD however.
It will never happen. At least not for a very very very long time. We have many places on earth that are not possible to be independent right now that are magnitudes easier and more habitable.
If they really want to play around, they should try it here on earth first as a proof of concept, preferably long term. The whole failed biodome experiment being a good example. Heck, put in the the Arctic or Antarctic and see how it fairs, or even just a very harsh remote region. Probably also be magnitudes cheaper to try that anyway. Heck turn it into a reality show and maybe it'll pay for itself these days...
Also on the whole poverty issue (and UBI really), is that I'd say if Canada did a better job addressing addiction and mental health that would probably account for 2/3 of the issue. For the remaining 1/3 (of non-addicted, mentally well people), things like a better back to work/education opportunities/business growth policies would probably solve half of those again. For the rest, there is probably little anyone is going to do about it... might as well UBI, as a society we'll be paying for it one way or another anyway. For me one the saddest part of our society is that so many mentally ill folks without strong family support structures get left behind it seems.
I also live in Canada. Though I always thought it silly that dental and eyes are not covered (haven't had to worry about ears yet). If you look at the market, those are also where people get gouged, largely because of monopolistic professional organizations. My glasses are about 800$, and there isn't much I can do about it, even shopping around. Ditto with dental, you pay what they tell you to pay and you have little choice but to go without. Some employers have benefits for those which help, but many people do not. I always like the example that someone could come punch me in the face and knock out a tooth, and I'm on hook for paying for it, while if he broke his hand doing so, it would be covered by universal health care. Just using as an example, and I know you could sue the guy for for the cost, however at the same time the idiots that would likely do something like that are not going to have any assets to sue for anyway making it moot. Of course rather than including them in the universal system they could fix the problem and regulate it more, but then again is that more or less difficult/expensive.
My other beef with the system is medication. Not so much that it isn't free, but more so that it isn't universal. It is managed at the provincial level which is silly. I know there have been various federal politicians that have promised to do something about it by doing national bulk purchasing from suppliers, but so far it hasn't happened. There are plenty of instances where a particular drug is available in one province, but not another, meaning you either have to use something different, more expensive, or move someplace that has it. Case in point my sister required medication in our home province, but the inexpensive version wasn't available. My parents figured out that the a University covered it under their student plan, and it was cheaper to enroll my sister in university so she could get the drug (with the spin off of additional education I suppose) than to simply pay for it, so she was a professional student for a time. Anyway how medications are handled in Canada could really use some standardization and modernization, particularly with much of our population aging and going to require more in the way of medications in the foreseeable future.
I think it is pretty simple. Most developed countries have declining birth rates to the point of population decline, this is for a variety of reasons, many of which you mention. Japan might be slightly worse for a few cultural reasons, but not by much likely. However most developed countries augment their population loss with immigration, typically from less developed countries which have less of those factors and thus a higher birthrate. As someone mentioned in a post Japan culturally is also pretty xenophobic to the point of racism. This likely discourages a lot of immigration, and those that do, perhaps do not ever really feel welcome and eventually leave. That likely has a much bigger impact on their population than anything else. That is a tough trait to overcome if its been ingrained for so long.
On the other comment of China, they have their own challenges. They are also getting very top heavy on the demographic chart, which will hit a tipping point sometime. Additionally their whole 1 child policy from years ago, and the preference for boys during that period of time, skews the middle of their demographic chart insofar as genders go, which is going to also have an impact on their future (i.e. number of couples and births). While on one side their population is so large that it sort of has it's own momentum, however being so massive also magnifies many of their challenges. Anyway it will be interesting to see what happens over the next 20 years and how China manages it. On the plus side (sort of) being a centralized government that isn't really democratic they are able to institute large policy programs to attempt to resolve their issues that would be impossible to implement in other countries. That said, like the afore mentioned 1 child policy the future ramifications might not be fully understood until much later...
While it is a generalization and doesn't apply to all women, it does apply to many women.
The inability to distinguish reality from fiction and the preferences of ridiculous romantic comedies (or romantic dramas, or anything "romantic" really) and the likes of Sex in the City etc... is ruining a lot of women. Where basically their expectations are set so high, and so one sided, that eventually even the most patient male is going to get pretty frustrated. It is the time old tale of the "princess" story but retold over and over again. From Cinderella, when they were a kid, from Pretty Woman years ago, to the latest 50 shades of grey etc... Always involve some poor woman getting swept off her feet by some prince or billionaire (millionaire is no good anymore apparently) for some arbitrary reason. Oh and now the billionaire is also somehow in his late twenties or early 30's and apparently also goes to the gym 5 times a week, but yet somehow finds the time (between earning billions, and working out so much) to spend every waking minute with the girl spoiling her with gifts and extravagant lifestyle. Anyway it is all so silly. I guess a normal, healthy relationship that is an equal partnership between two people that respect each other doesn't make for an entertaining story... but it would certainly give women something much more realistic (and better) to aspire to.
I know I've actually said "You know that is fiction right? That it isn't real?" to which the response is "But so much of it is so true...". Uh huh. And before someone tries to defend Sex in the City (which might be odd for Slashdot) in saying that some of the stories aren't like that, they also feature 4 women that just happen to be millionaires themselves apparently living in NYC, while doing seemingly no work, though one is a writer and another a lawyer... To which I would ask are you also a successful millionaire fashion writer in her 30's living in NYC, because if you're not, it doesn't really apply to you.
Then there is the whole body image thing, particularly in movies now. Every guy is ripped. "Why can't you look like that"? That is his job. He is getting paid millions of dollars to get a trainer and work out constantly for like a year for that brief 5 second spot on that movie. However if you go to the gym a lot, you're never spending any time with them because "you're always at the gym". Anyway, a general absence of reality in many cases, you literally can't win when a warped reality is against you.
Well it looks like he just published a new book! Can't wait for the next one! :)
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-eng...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
NanoPi Neo 2 VS NanoPi Neo Plus2
Can they not just call it something different, is it just me or do those name hurt your head, more so when trying to tell the difference between the two or which one is which... ugh.
Meh. Just call it Dark Matter and be done with it...
More seriously, though I am unsure of how reasonable it is, perhaps it is a close agglomeration of belt objects working in concert gravitationally. Even within the belt most objects, probably particularly distant ones are quite far apart relatively speaking, most space is exactly that. However if there was some event in the distant past, or even some unknown solar mechanic that might glom many of these objects close enough together that as a whole have enough gravitational pull to have their exertion noticed, yet at the same time be distant enough, and not "solid" enough to really be detected by conventional means...
Pretty much this is the problem, however the solution is not so clear, nor really linked directly to the issue at hand. Obama I think did the best he could which what he had in front of him, had he tried to do away with the insurance component, it likely would never have passed. He probably figured this was at least something that was an improvement over what currently existed.
The problem is, particularly in the US political structure is the amount of money in play within the political cycle. There is a feedback loop, where the more money say the insurance groups make, the more influence the have, the more money they make, etc... Until that cycle is broken, I can't see much change happening, because you just won't get elected.
On further thought as the the unreasonableness of the sub idea, if enough walls and such can block wifi within my house, I'd imagine a ships HULL might not be a great medium to get through, though I suppose they could launch a buoy or something... Anyway would make for a good movie scene if you can suspend some of those thoughts for awhile.