We already have devices in our pockets that can speak and be spoken to
My Echo is in the kitchen. I can ask it to do things when my hands are busy or dirty, or when I am across the room. The speaker is loud enough to hear over the blender or vent fan. Alexa can control the lights, warn me about motion on the porch, etc.
A cell phone is not a substitute. When I am at home, my phone is on the charger in my office, not where I am, and it requires far more physical interaction. Why would I wash and dry my hands and then walk to my office and get my cell phone to turn off a light? It would be easier to just use the wall switch.
I hear these devices even have task specific "apps" to do the things that echo does badly.
The Echo also has 3rd party apps, but with a far better security model.
Actually, it is. The mosquito gene-drive is programmed to only produce male mosquitoes. It is inherited, and can spread through the population, causing the local population to slowly fade away as there are fewer and fewer females in each generation.
Don't mistake no public warning with no warning. You are acting like there isn't a new mover of spy satellites watching North Korea at any given moment.
The spy satellites that have the resolution to see the launch preparations are in LEO, and have a viewing window of less than a minute during each orbit.
The spy satellites that can dwell and "zoom-in" are only in the movies.
Also, the missile was prepped and launched in the middle of the night, and this time of year Korea has plenty of clouds.
Designing the system to cook people would be more effective, as the weapons would be shielded.
This system would require a lot of lead time to load the B-52, takeoff, fly to NK airspace, launch the cruise missile, and wait for its subsonic engines to propel it to the target.
The NK missile launch last week occurred with NO warning. They were able to fuel and prepare the missile for launch without detection.
This microwave system would be worthless at countering a NK missile launch. It would only be useful as a first strike weapon. Fear of an American preemptive strike is exactly what motivated NK to develop their nukes in the first place.
Maybe someday America will learn that you don't convince your adversary to stop being paranoid by threatening to attack them.
They don't care. The whole point of the article is to promote environmental nihilism and apathy. If 16 ships pollute more than a billion cars, and wind turbines kill birds, and bicyclists run over endangered insects, then clearly everything is equally bad and nothing matters and readers can continue to drive their SUVs guilt free.
Container ships burn high sulfur bunker fuel, which produces lots and lots of sulfates, which are nasty pollutants... ON LAND. But at sea, the sulfates settle onto the surface of the sea, where they have a negligible effect since the ocean already contains quadrillions of tons of sulfur.
Sulfur is a pollutant in the same way that salt is a pollutant: It depends on where you put it.
Little or none. The result of the cheating was not more pollution, just different pollution. More particulates, but less CO2. There was no known way to make their engines clean enough to pass the test while still making them reasonably efficient.
Ford and GM bought and used the same cheat device.
Bullcrap. Ford and GM don't even make diesel cars, and vans and trucks don't have to meet the same emissions standards. There is no reason for them to cheat, since they aren't even in the game.
What's the environmental impact of this battery manufacturing?
Compared to extracting oil from the Alberta tar sands, the impact is modest. Lithium is extracted from salt flats and underground brine, which are not ecological hotspots. Cobalt is mostly a byproduct of open pit copper and nickel mining, and little mining is done specifically to extract cobalt.
If they're being shipped from Japan to the US, then they'll have a higher carbon footprint due to being shipped across an ocean than batteries manufactured locally, no?
Not really. Ocean transport is very efficient, and adds little to the carbon footprint of these vehicles.
Are vehicles that use batteries like this truly more environmentally friendly
As we shift from fossil fuels to batteries, we will have to ramp up production. Tesla is causing that to happen NOW, rather than in the future when it could be even more disruptive. This is a Good Thing. We need to produce more lithium, and more cobalt. We need to make more batteries, and make them cheaper and more efficiently. By bringing the inevitable supply problems forward, innovators will be incentivized to find solutions.
Home schooling does't mean the parents are the sole teachers. Many home schoolers use online courses, including Khan Academy and other resources. Many work in groups with other home schooled kids with parents rotating to teach their area of expertise.
Disclaimer: My kids attend public school, but I supplement that with plenty of learning at home (rockets, robots, programming, explosives, etc.).
You claim that discrimination is self-correcting, but there is plenty of evidence that it is not. Racial segregation persisted for more than a century in America despite being against the economic interests of its practitioners.
Another example is sexual discrimination in Japan. Men are usually promoted based on seniority rather than competence, while women are generally excluded from the hierarchy. So it is common for a "super secretary" to be actually running the company, while her incompetent boss sits in his office and drinks tea. Some multi-nationals from America and Europe are able to take advantage of the situation by opening branches in Japan and hiring very competent women at bargain salaries. But there is little sign that Japanese companies are willing to change.
Nobody is being paid under the table. That is not how the system works. The political donations by the telecoms to Republican politicians are perfectly legal and done openly... as are the media industry's donations to the Democrats.
FYI, I'm in Australia.
That explains your misunderstanding. In most countries corruption is illegal. In America, it is not.
I'm happy for pirates making copies for distribution and profit to go to jail
That is just stupid. Copyright is a civil offence, and should be punished by fines, not jail time. America already imprisons four times as many people per capita as other countries. We don't need to start imprisoning even more people just for photocopying.
copies and format shifting for personal use _should_ be completely legal in all countries.
I see. So if I burn a DVD for myself, that would be perfectly legal, but if I make an extra copy for a friend I go to prison... even though it would be perfectly legal for my friend to make his own copy?
The most important skill and experience you take away from public school is the ability to deal with the public.
Homeschooled kids lose out on that big time
Can you cite any evidence that this is true? With five minutes of googling I located research that found homeschoolers equally or slightly better socialized, according to several different metrics, and none that found they were worse.
At least until Google, Microsoft, Apple, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, etc stop brainwashing the kids.
My kids attend public schools, and I haven't seen a single thing that I would consider "brainwashing". They learned about evolution, including epigenetics via cytosine methylation that went well beyond "classical" genetics. It was taught in a very balanced way. When they touched on controversial topics in civics class, such as gay marriage, affirmative action, illegal immigration, etc. the teacher was actually very careful not to take sides.
Would you care to give an example of something you would consider "brainwashing" that is currently occurring in public schools?
Population increases, which will level out, cannot be the only explanation for this.
Actually, population decrease is a major cause. As birthrates fall, adults have more time to work, and less money is spent on education and other childhood expenses. This means that more resources can be channeled into industrialization and economic growth. This is known as a "demographic dividend".
China implemented their one-child policy 38 years ago, when China and India had similar GDPs and produced similar amounts of pollution. China's population growth slowed dramatically, and has started to decline. Indians continued to procreate. Today, China's GDP is four times that of India, and they produce far more pollution.
Population decline is, of course, not the only cause of pollution, but it is a big factor. However, it is not inevitable. Birth rates in India are now dropping, and they are having their own "demographic dividend", but it is mostly being squandered by bad policies and economic mismanagement. That is bad for Indians, but good for the environment.
A day when no government can create or destroy money is a win for the world.
It is not clear this is true. In the past many countries used currencies based on gold, and that didn't really work out so well. As economies grew, and the supply of gold grew more slowly, the result was deflation, which inhibits growth. It was difficult to stimulated the economy out of recessions.
Once gold was demonetized, it became a store of value rather than a currency. Bitcoin seems headed the same way. People mostly buy bitcoins as speculation, not for use as a currency.
Why don't you move to that country that provides everything you need without charging anyone taxes
Where would that be? Somalia was tax free for a while, but the violence has subsided and things are improving there (or getting worse, depending on your perspective).
Slashdot Mirror
I still think it's a bit early for the public to perform beta testing of such a frail system.
Autopilot has driven over 3 billion km, and the data shows it is safer than humans. Enough is enough. It is time to start phasing out human drivers.
I'm not going to stick an always-on mic in my home just to save 30 seconds in the kitchen.
Do you own a cell phone? It is a far bigger threat to your privacy.
We already have devices in our pockets that can speak and be spoken to
My Echo is in the kitchen. I can ask it to do things when my hands are busy or dirty, or when I am across the room. The speaker is loud enough to hear over the blender or vent fan. Alexa can control the lights, warn me about motion on the porch, etc.
A cell phone is not a substitute. When I am at home, my phone is on the charger in my office, not where I am, and it requires far more physical interaction. Why would I wash and dry my hands and then walk to my office and get my cell phone to turn off a light? It would be easier to just use the wall switch.
I hear these devices even have task specific "apps" to do the things that echo does badly.
The Echo also has 3rd party apps, but with a far better security model.
Amazon Alexa supports Black Lives Matter.
Believing that black lives matter is not the same thing as supporting Black Lives Matter.
I've had tickets I've closed out for ISPs due to "fiber seeking backhoe"
A backhoe makes sense. A tractor does not. Plows rarely go deeper than 8 inches (20 cm).
Most likely this is just a dumb journalist that doesn't understand the difference between a backhoe and a tractor.
The inability to reproduce is not inheritable.
Actually, it is. The mosquito gene-drive is programmed to only produce male mosquitoes. It is inherited, and can spread through the population, causing the local population to slowly fade away as there are fewer and fewer females in each generation.
they sell when it's high and buy when it's low
The "highs and lows" are only apparent in hindsight.
It is easy to see patterns in past data (even if there are none), but if you try to guess tomorrow's price, you will usually do no better than chance.
If you think otherwise, then please explain why everyone isn't rich.
Don't mistake no public warning with no warning. You are acting like there isn't a new mover of spy satellites watching North Korea at any given moment.
The spy satellites that have the resolution to see the launch preparations are in LEO, and have a viewing window of less than a minute during each orbit.
The spy satellites that can dwell and "zoom-in" are only in the movies.
Also, the missile was prepped and launched in the middle of the night, and this time of year Korea has plenty of clouds.
Designing the system to cook people would be more effective, as the weapons would be shielded.
This system would require a lot of lead time to load the B-52, takeoff, fly to NK airspace, launch the cruise missile, and wait for its subsonic engines to propel it to the target.
The NK missile launch last week occurred with NO warning. They were able to fuel and prepare the missile for launch without detection.
This microwave system would be worthless at countering a NK missile launch. It would only be useful as a first strike weapon. Fear of an American preemptive strike is exactly what motivated NK to develop their nukes in the first place.
Maybe someday America will learn that you don't convince your adversary to stop being paranoid by threatening to attack them.
Why do people do this?
If you put a button on the wall, most people will ignore it.
If you then put up a big sign that says "Don't push this button" it will be pushed much more often,
The Daily Mail caring about the environment?
They don't care. The whole point of the article is to promote environmental nihilism and apathy. If 16 ships pollute more than a billion cars, and wind turbines kill birds, and bicyclists run over endangered insects, then clearly everything is equally bad and nothing matters and readers can continue to drive their SUVs guilt free.
Ocean shipping is dirty as hell!
Container ships burn high sulfur bunker fuel, which produces lots and lots of sulfates, which are nasty pollutants ... ON LAND. But at sea, the sulfates settle onto the surface of the sea, where they have a negligible effect since the ocean already contains quadrillions of tons of sulfur.
Sulfur is a pollutant in the same way that salt is a pollutant: It depends on where you put it.
How much environmental damage did this cause?
Little or none. The result of the cheating was not more pollution, just different pollution. More particulates, but less CO2. There was no known way to make their engines clean enough to pass the test while still making them reasonably efficient.
Ford and GM bought and used the same cheat device.
Bullcrap. Ford and GM don't even make diesel cars, and vans and trucks don't have to meet the same emissions standards. There is no reason for them to cheat, since they aren't even in the game.
What's the environmental impact of this battery manufacturing?
Compared to extracting oil from the Alberta tar sands, the impact is modest. Lithium is extracted from salt flats and underground brine, which are not ecological hotspots. Cobalt is mostly a byproduct of open pit copper and nickel mining, and little mining is done specifically to extract cobalt.
If they're being shipped from Japan to the US, then they'll have a higher carbon footprint due to being shipped across an ocean than batteries manufactured locally, no?
Not really. Ocean transport is very efficient, and adds little to the carbon footprint of these vehicles.
Are vehicles that use batteries like this truly more environmentally friendly
Yes, by a big margin.
Fuck everyone else. It's just good business.
As we shift from fossil fuels to batteries, we will have to ramp up production. Tesla is causing that to happen NOW, rather than in the future when it could be even more disruptive. This is a Good Thing. We need to produce more lithium, and more cobalt. We need to make more batteries, and make them cheaper and more efficiently. By bringing the inevitable supply problems forward, innovators will be incentivized to find solutions.
Home schooling does't mean the parents are the sole teachers. Many home schoolers use online courses, including Khan Academy and other resources. Many work in groups with other home schooled kids with parents rotating to teach their area of expertise.
Disclaimer: My kids attend public school, but I supplement that with plenty of learning at home (rockets, robots, programming, explosives, etc.).
You claim that discrimination is self-correcting, but there is plenty of evidence that it is not. Racial segregation persisted for more than a century in America despite being against the economic interests of its practitioners.
Another example is sexual discrimination in Japan. Men are usually promoted based on seniority rather than competence, while women are generally excluded from the hierarchy. So it is common for a "super secretary" to be actually running the company, while her incompetent boss sits in his office and drinks tea. Some multi-nationals from America and Europe are able to take advantage of the situation by opening branches in Japan and hiring very competent women at bargain salaries. But there is little sign that Japanese companies are willing to change.
I wonder who is paying him under the table?
Nobody is being paid under the table. That is not how the system works. The political donations by the telecoms to Republican politicians are perfectly legal and done openly ... as are the media industry's donations to the Democrats.
FYI, I'm in Australia.
That explains your misunderstanding. In most countries corruption is illegal. In America, it is not.
I'm happy for pirates making copies for distribution and profit to go to jail
That is just stupid. Copyright is a civil offence, and should be punished by fines, not jail time. America already imprisons four times as many people per capita as other countries. We don't need to start imprisoning even more people just for photocopying.
copies and format shifting for personal use _should_ be completely legal in all countries.
I see. So if I burn a DVD for myself, that would be perfectly legal, but if I make an extra copy for a friend I go to prison ... even though it would be perfectly legal for my friend to make his own copy?
The most important skill and experience you take away from public school is the ability to deal with the public.
Homeschooled kids lose out on that big time
Can you cite any evidence that this is true? With five minutes of googling I located research that found homeschoolers equally or slightly better socialized, according to several different metrics, and none that found they were worse.
At least until Google, Microsoft, Apple, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, etc stop brainwashing the kids.
My kids attend public schools, and I haven't seen a single thing that I would consider "brainwashing". They learned about evolution, including epigenetics via cytosine methylation that went well beyond "classical" genetics. It was taught in a very balanced way. When they touched on controversial topics in civics class, such as gay marriage, affirmative action, illegal immigration, etc. the teacher was actually very careful not to take sides.
Would you care to give an example of something you would consider "brainwashing" that is currently occurring in public schools?
Population increases, which will level out, cannot be the only explanation for this.
Actually, population decrease is a major cause. As birthrates fall, adults have more time to work, and less money is spent on education and other childhood expenses. This means that more resources can be channeled into industrialization and economic growth. This is known as a "demographic dividend".
China implemented their one-child policy 38 years ago, when China and India had similar GDPs and produced similar amounts of pollution. China's population growth slowed dramatically, and has started to decline. Indians continued to procreate. Today, China's GDP is four times that of India, and they produce far more pollution.
Population decline is, of course, not the only cause of pollution, but it is a big factor. However, it is not inevitable. Birth rates in India are now dropping, and they are having their own "demographic dividend", but it is mostly being squandered by bad policies and economic mismanagement. That is bad for Indians, but good for the environment.
A day when no government can create or destroy money is a win for the world.
It is not clear this is true. In the past many countries used currencies based on gold, and that didn't really work out so well. As economies grew, and the supply of gold grew more slowly, the result was deflation, which inhibits growth. It was difficult to stimulated the economy out of recessions.
Once gold was demonetized, it became a store of value rather than a currency. Bitcoin seems headed the same way. People mostly buy bitcoins as speculation, not for use as a currency.
Why don't you move to that country that provides everything you need without charging anyone taxes
Where would that be? Somalia was tax free for a while, but the violence has subsided and things are improving there (or getting worse, depending on your perspective).