The problem is that bitcoin blockchain transactions can take from 10 minutes to more than an hour. During a "normal" day, this does not matter so much, because an exchange will have roughly equal numbers of buyers and sellers and can clear transactions internally with just a ledger entry. But on volatile days, the number of buyers and sellers may be skewed, and since the price is fluctuating, the exchange cannot take the risk of internal clearing. So they have to buy or sell bitcoins on the blockchain... which takes time.
This is not some conspiracy by Coinbase. This is just the way that Bitcoin works.
There is also a cost to stocking shipping boxes that just happen to be the right size
Instead of stocking boxes, they could just stock flat sheets of cardboard, and laser cut the cardboard to the ideal size on-demand.
But, anyway, I don't think stocking is the main problem. I get boxes that are WAY too big, while on the same day receiving other smaller boxes that would have easily held the contents of the first box. So they clearly had the smaller boxes in stock.
I realize that the Packing Problem is NP-Hard, but there are heuristics that allow an adequate solution. They should be able to do way better.
The peeing into a plastic bottle trick is pretty common for “professional” drivers
Also small plane pilots. The bottle is way cheaper and more comfortable than buying adult diapers.
Free advice: Do NOT use a bottle that still has an "Apple Juice" label on it.
Amazon uses boxes grossly larger than needed
I have never understood this. I get boxes from Amazon that are WAY too big for the contents all the time. This must be costing them money, for the cardboard, padding, weight, and volume. Why do they do this?
It seems to me that it would be trivial to write some code to add up the size of the contents to pick the right box. A robot could then pull the box and add it to the picking bin.
I'm the wierd American who prefers quality over cost. I refuse to deal with Black Friday bullshit
Do you seriously believe that the products that are sold on Black Friday are different from the products sold on every other day? Do you think that factories make special "Black Friday" manufacturing runs, with the quality knob turned down?
For a school with thousands of students, what do you suggest as an alternative?
If you give them "real" PCs, they will screw them up, and you will need dozens of IT staff to delete viruses and reformat drives. At any given time, you will have hundreds of students without working computers.
The old solution was to reformat the drive everyday to a standard image, which means that the PC is just an expensive thin client. With a Chromebook, you get the thin client for less money, without the hassle of reformatting, and without a fragile magnetic drive.
So are you saying that in America it's not a crime to put a hidden camera inside, for example, a women's public shower room as long as it's only you who masturbate with the recording? Cool!
It is illegal in some jurisdictions. But I am not aware of any federal law.
The company I work for has a psychopath as a CEO/President.
Just because you don't like the guy doesn't mean he isn't an effective CEO. Being effective is not the same as being popular.
Psychopaths often make better leaders because they can ignore the emotions, look at the big picture, and make clear utilitarian decisions. This is especially true for military leadership, where a callous and aggressive push for victory will often result in far fewer casualties than cautious dithering.
Bet you're happy they've quit putting Ethernet ports on everything huh?
I bet they are. At $5 a pop, that would have added $50k to the cost of a 10k unit order. For what? An external USB-to-Ethernet dongle ($10 on Amazon) is far more economical, since you don't need one for every Chromebook (unless your router/server has 10,000 ethernet ports).
Adding hardwired ethernet to every computer "just in case" makes about as much sense as including an RS-232 and a parallel printer port. Those can also be done with a dongle.
Schools do NOT expect to use Chromebooks as PCs. They use them as thin clients, running everything in a browser. The kids can't mess them up, because, well, there is nothing on them.
The schools know what they want, and Chromebooks deliver it. Nobody is being deceived.
In America, surreptitious audio recordings are generally illegal, but video recordings and photography usually are not. It would be illegal to use the photos for extortion or blackmail. It might be illegal to distribute them without the consent of the subject, and would almost certainly be illegal to do so for commercial gain.
The decades old accusations are mainly happening to politicians. Even there, it is mostly the hypocrisy rather than the acts themselves that have harmed them. Roy Moore positioned himself as an ultra-moral God-fearing family values conservative, so revelations that he pursued underage girls were especially damaging.
Likewise with Al Franken. Most of his accusers said that they came forward when they heard his holier-than-thou denunciations of other abusers, when they knew he had done the same to them.
Old accusations have also brought down some show biz people, like Bill Cosby, but I can't think of any incidents where non-public figures have been held accountable for behavior over a decade old.
... except it is orthogonal to "in-home delivery". Late packages are a problem regardless of whether the delivery is placed in the home or left on the porch.
letting a person into your private residence really does feel scummy.
My housekeeper comes twice a month while I am at work, and there is no camera watching her except at the entry. I have private documents in my home office, so I lock the door to that room, and she doesn't go in there. It felt "creepy" for the first month, then I got used to it.
I have no need for Amazon's in-home delivery, but if I used it, I am sure I would get over the "creepiness" factor very quickly.
This reporter may feel uncomfortable about someone coming into his home, but his personal feelings are not "news".
In this case, nothing. The reporter just doesn't like the concept of in-home delivery, signed up for it anyway, and then wrote an article about how he doesn't like the concept because it was "creepy", even though in practice it worked out fine.
True, but they don't exist in Long Beach. The poop will have to be hauled in. This sounds like a publicity stunt rather than a real attempt to help the environment.
This will take waste that would normally generate methane
A cow patty decaying in a field does not generate methane. It only generates methane if it decays in anaerobic conditions.
Fine, so screw the people who actually are better than Autopilot?
It isn't clear that anyone is better. Is the "best" driver 40% less likely to be in an accident as an average driver? I don't know, but perhaps not. Many accidents are unavoidable. If someone pulls out in front of you, and there is no place to swerve except into oncoming traffic, then the only thing that matters is how fast you can brake. Even the best humans take about 1500ms to see the problem, realize what is happening, shift their foot to the brake, and start depressing. At 60 mph, a car can go about 130 feet in 1.5 seconds. Autopilot takes about 1ms to start braking.
And as I keep saying, would it have happened to THAT human? If not, then we are all fools to trust the technology.
That makes as much sense as saying that you should buy lottery tickets because you might win.
If your driving skills are 40% better than average, you might come out ahead by driving yourself. Everyone else has better odds with Autopilot, and the odds will get better as the technology improves.
Also, these AI ASICs are not that complicated. They are just a big array of FP16 or FP8 multipliers with a really wide data path. Sort of like a low precision GPU with all the graphics features removed.
Google already makes their own but they don't sell it, it is for internal use only. They used it for AlphaGo, and they also use it for image processing.
Slashdot Mirror
there's not yet a futures market.
This was true when you wrote it. But CBOE started trading bitcoin futures today at 6pm Chicago time.
This will be interesting.
The problem is that bitcoin blockchain transactions can take from 10 minutes to more than an hour. During a "normal" day, this does not matter so much, because an exchange will have roughly equal numbers of buyers and sellers and can clear transactions internally with just a ledger entry. But on volatile days, the number of buyers and sellers may be skewed, and since the price is fluctuating, the exchange cannot take the risk of internal clearing. So they have to buy or sell bitcoins on the blockchain ... which takes time.
This is not some conspiracy by Coinbase. This is just the way that Bitcoin works.
There is also a cost to stocking shipping boxes that just happen to be the right size
Instead of stocking boxes, they could just stock flat sheets of cardboard, and laser cut the cardboard to the ideal size on-demand.
But, anyway, I don't think stocking is the main problem. I get boxes that are WAY too big, while on the same day receiving other smaller boxes that would have easily held the contents of the first box. So they clearly had the smaller boxes in stock.
I realize that the Packing Problem is NP-Hard, but there are heuristics that allow an adequate solution. They should be able to do way better.
The peeing into a plastic bottle trick is pretty common for “professional” drivers
Also small plane pilots. The bottle is way cheaper and more comfortable than buying adult diapers.
Free advice: Do NOT use a bottle that still has an "Apple Juice" label on it.
Amazon uses boxes grossly larger than needed
I have never understood this. I get boxes from Amazon that are WAY too big for the contents all the time. This must be costing them money, for the cardboard, padding, weight, and volume. Why do they do this?
It seems to me that it would be trivial to write some code to add up the size of the contents to pick the right box. A robot could then pull the box and add it to the picking bin.
I'm the wierd American who prefers quality over cost. I refuse to deal with Black Friday bullshit
Do you seriously believe that the products that are sold on Black Friday are different from the products sold on every other day? Do you think that factories make special "Black Friday" manufacturing runs, with the quality knob turned down?
For a school with thousands of students, what do you suggest as an alternative?
If you give them "real" PCs, they will screw them up, and you will need dozens of IT staff to delete viruses and reformat drives. At any given time, you will have hundreds of students without working computers.
The old solution was to reformat the drive everyday to a standard image, which means that the PC is just an expensive thin client. With a Chromebook, you get the thin client for less money, without the hassle of reformatting, and without a fragile magnetic drive.
So are you saying that in America it's not a crime to put a hidden camera inside, for example, a women's public shower room as long as it's only you who masturbate with the recording? Cool!
It is illegal in some jurisdictions. But I am not aware of any federal law.
The company I work for has a psychopath as a CEO/President.
Just because you don't like the guy doesn't mean he isn't an effective CEO. Being effective is not the same as being popular.
Psychopaths often make better leaders because they can ignore the emotions, look at the big picture, and make clear utilitarian decisions. This is especially true for military leadership, where a callous and aggressive push for victory will often result in far fewer casualties than cautious dithering.
So? Do you have any evidence that psychopaths make worse employees? For many jobs, moral and ethical qualms can be a major impediment to performance.
As the old saying goes: "Never hire a salesman that you'd want your daughter to marry."
Bet you're happy they've quit putting Ethernet ports on everything huh?
I bet they are. At $5 a pop, that would have added $50k to the cost of a 10k unit order. For what? An external USB-to-Ethernet dongle ($10 on Amazon) is far more economical, since you don't need one for every Chromebook (unless your router/server has 10,000 ethernet ports).
Adding hardwired ethernet to every computer "just in case" makes about as much sense as including an RS-232 and a parallel printer port. Those can also be done with a dongle.
... and expect to use that as a PC.
Schools do NOT expect to use Chromebooks as PCs. They use them as thin clients, running everything in a browser. The kids can't mess them up, because, well, there is nothing on them.
The schools know what they want, and Chromebooks deliver it. Nobody is being deceived.
Of course this is a crime
Really? Can you cite the law?
In America, surreptitious audio recordings are generally illegal, but video recordings and photography usually are not. It would be illegal to use the photos for extortion or blackmail. It might be illegal to distribute them without the consent of the subject, and would almost certainly be illegal to do so for commercial gain.
With no statute of limitation either.
The decades old accusations are mainly happening to politicians. Even there, it is mostly the hypocrisy rather than the acts themselves that have harmed them. Roy Moore positioned himself as an ultra-moral God-fearing family values conservative, so revelations that he pursued underage girls were especially damaging.
Likewise with Al Franken. Most of his accusers said that they came forward when they heard his holier-than-thou denunciations of other abusers, when they knew he had done the same to them.
Old accusations have also brought down some show biz people, like Bill Cosby, but I can't think of any incidents where non-public figures have been held accountable for behavior over a decade old.
His complaint about late packages is very valid.
... except it is orthogonal to "in-home delivery". Late packages are a problem regardless of whether the delivery is placed in the home or left on the porch.
letting a person into your private residence really does feel scummy.
My housekeeper comes twice a month while I am at work, and there is no camera watching her except at the entry. I have private documents in my home office, so I lock the door to that room, and she doesn't go in there. It felt "creepy" for the first month, then I got used to it.
I have no need for Amazon's in-home delivery, but if I used it, I am sure I would get over the "creepiness" factor very quickly.
This reporter may feel uncomfortable about someone coming into his home, but his personal feelings are not "news".
As long as "at your convenience" means between the hours of 8;30am and 5:30pm.
Nope. Most Amazon Locker locations are accessible 24/7.
The closest to my house is inside a gas station convenience store that never closes.
...what possibly could go wrong ???
In this case, nothing. The reporter just doesn't like the concept of in-home delivery, signed up for it anyway, and then wrote an article about how he doesn't like the concept because it was "creepy", even though in practice it worked out fine.
Solution: Put a close-to-lock box on your front porch. Then go to Amazon, click on "track this order" and then click on the signature waiver.
The cows exist either way.
True, but they don't exist in Long Beach. The poop will have to be hauled in. This sounds like a publicity stunt rather than a real attempt to help the environment.
This will take waste that would normally generate methane
A cow patty decaying in a field does not generate methane. It only generates methane if it decays in anaerobic conditions.
Which leads to a world where if other people can't steal your wallet, at the very least it makes financial sense for them to try to destroy it
This is also true for dollars, diamonds, and gold. They are valuable because they are scarce.
This is why a non-'anonymous' centralized system is desirable.
Nope. The forgotten passwords are a Good Thing, because each lost btc means mine are worth more.
Fine, so screw the people who actually are better than Autopilot?
It isn't clear that anyone is better. Is the "best" driver 40% less likely to be in an accident as an average driver? I don't know, but perhaps not. Many accidents are unavoidable. If someone pulls out in front of you, and there is no place to swerve except into oncoming traffic, then the only thing that matters is how fast you can brake. Even the best humans take about 1500ms to see the problem, realize what is happening, shift their foot to the brake, and start depressing. At 60 mph, a car can go about 130 feet in 1.5 seconds. Autopilot takes about 1ms to start braking.
Those with such skills likely know it
Nope. 80% of drivers rate themselves "above average".
And as I keep saying, would it have happened to THAT human? If not, then we are all fools to trust the technology.
That makes as much sense as saying that you should buy lottery tickets because you might win.
If your driving skills are 40% better than average, you might come out ahead by driving yourself. Everyone else has better odds with Autopilot, and the odds will get better as the technology improves.
Tesla is likely working with AMD on this. It was reported a couple of months ago.
Also, these AI ASICs are not that complicated. They are just a big array of FP16 or FP8 multipliers with a really wide data path. Sort of like a low precision GPU with all the graphics features removed.
Google already makes their own but they don't sell it, it is for internal use only. They used it for AlphaGo, and they also use it for image processing.