It's also making a comeback due to the startling number of hippie parents who refuse to vaccinate their children
No it isn't. The last known smallpox infection was in Somalia in 1973. Over the last 40 years, the number of cases has been precisely zero. That is not a "comeback".
There are other diseases, including measles and mumps, that have had a resurgence in developed countries, but smallpox is not among them. Which is a good thing. Smallpox is far deadlier than any of those other diseases, and has killed more people than all the wars of history combined. It killed over 300 million people during the 20th century, or about six times as many as WW2.
From the first paragraph of that page: Tying is often illegal when the products are not naturally related.
Internet and TV are certainly related, since they are delivered over the same cable. The TV shows are already being sent, so it costs them nothing to turn on the reception at your house. So why should you expect a discount?
Bunch of stuffed shirts, but they got shit done and cooperated with Democrats.
Do you mean when they cooperated, and ran up $18 trillion in debt? Or when they cooperated and launched the dumbest war in history, with bipartisan support? I think I prefer gridlock.
if the police aren't doing anything wrong, why are they trying to hide it?
Because if they drive down the street with a car marked "POLICE LICENSE PLATE SCANNER" and find a car associated with a wanted suspect, then that suspect may be long gone by the time they come back to make an arrest.
set back the effort to eliminae smallpox worldwide.
Minor quibble: Smallpox was eliminated in the 1970s. The CIA operatives were disguised as polio vaccine workers.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries in the world where polio is still endemic. Several dozen polio vaccine workers were killed in the backlash against the CIA ruse. The CIA has admitted that impersonating vaccine workers was a mistake, and said that they will not do it again.
The movie "Zero Dark Thirty" showed CIA operatives pretending to be vaccine workers, but did not mention the backlash.
Amazon has sold more than 3 million echos. I have one, several of my neighbors have them, and so do some of my co-workers. Mostly people seem happy with it, and when they complain about something, it is usually in the context of hoping it will be fixed in the next version, rather than something that will make them stop using it. Since I have bought mine, several features have been fixed or added via free over-the-air software updates.
My friend uses his Echo as an alarm clock. A very expensive alarm clock.
I bought mine a year ago for $149, so it is not that expensive, and it can do way more than just sound an alarm. But there is room for improvement, so I am happy to see Google launching a competing product. Echo gets confused if you ask it a complicated question, and Google should do better at that. It also needs a separate bridge interface for IoT (Zigbee, ZWave, etc.), so a built in hub to control lights, locks, thermostats, motion sensor, and other devices would be nice. I currently have a Samsung SmartThings, but that costs an extra $100, and the link from the Echo to the SmartThings is flakey.
Many people react differently to alcohol as well. But you have to draw the line somewhere. If we get the drunks and stoners off the road, is it really a big tragedy if a few semi-sober people are removed as well?
So if one sensor says "body" but another sensor says "plastic bag", you're going to err on the side of it not being a human and just hit it?
The sensors are not specific enough to say "body". The camera will say "falling object, but with a low terminal velocity", radar will say "doesn't reflect much", ultrasound will say "it sounds flexible and hollow", the GPS will say "it is too far from the bridge to be a jumper", and the object recognition software will say "It looks like a plastic bag".
Or until you run into snow, poor lane markings, etc....
Autopilot works fine in snow. Better than most humans. Tesla specifically recommends that you use Autopilot during snowstorms because it is safer that driving yourself.
Autopilot also handles poor lane markings better than humans, because it can rely on other sensors while humans only have sight. Specifically, Autopilot has data of exactly where in the lane previous Teslas drove on the same road, and will tend to keep you in the center of that.
no amount of smarts, whether human or artificial, will allow a car to avoid hitting, say, a guy who suddenly lands in front of them after jumping off a highway overpass to commit suicide.
Actually, the self-driving car is more likely to avoid an accident in a situation like that because it will react from 700 to 1500 milliseconds faster. At normal highway speed, that means about 100 feet (or 30 meters) of extra braking distance.
Maybe if I could travel an interstate with no interaction, that might qualify.
You can. Tesla autopilot doesn't do intersections, or on-ramps, but once you are on the freeway, you can engage it, and it will self-drive until you reach your exit.
In Teslas with Autopilot, all the hardware is already present for full self-driving, and new features will be added as the software matures.
How does Denmark push its electricity to its neighbours Germany, Norway or Sweden, when they are doing the same?
Because the wind doesn't always blow everywhere at once, but it is always blowing somewhere. Wind energy is more reliable when it is geographically dispersed, so one region's peaks can fill another region's troughs.
Hirohito's son, Akihito is the current emperor of Japan. Their family dynasty dates back to Emperor Jimmu in 660BC, making it, by far, the longest reigning dynasty in history. The main reason for the dynasty's longevity, is that for nearly all of that time, the emperor was just a figurehead with very little actual authority, while the real power was exercised by the Shogun.
In 1943, Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr (German Intelligence) offered to assassinate Hitler and end the war. Churchill's reply was that the Allies would accept no terms but unconditional surrender. Later in the war, the Nazis executed Canaris for treason.
In July 1944, a coup was launched and an attempt was made to assassinate Hitler. The plan was to kill Hitler, and then immediately negotiate a surrender. The assassination failed, but the coup did not collapse until it was clear that the Allies had refused to negotiate and were unwilling to accept any terms that included soldiers returning home, rather than going to labor camps (where, at least in Russia, most inmates died). From 1944 on, the Allies were fighting for the right to have death camps, and nothing more.
I find it rather interesting that among asians most of these math competitions are Chinese participation, while Koreans, Japanese...have considerably less representation.
It is considerably harder for a Chinese citizen to emigrate to America, compared to South Koreans or Japanese. So the Chinese who work through the process and come here tend to be competitive, hard working, and well educated.
It was American lives or Japanese lives, and the US rightly decided to save American lives.
No it wasn't. The Japanese had already agreed to cease hostilities and surrender. Their only condition was that their emperor not be deposed. America refused, and fought on. After the Japanese surrendered unconditionally, we decided that it was better to let Hirohito keep his job after all.
So the bombing was not at all necessary to "save lives".
Oh, and one other thing: The Germans also offered to surrender in 1943 (when 90% of American casualties had not yet occurred), and again in 1944 (when 75% of American casualties had not yet occurred). Their only condition was that their soldiers be allowed to return peacefully to Germany. We refused, and the war went on.
It is mathematically impossible for Obama to beat Reagan's record for vacation time while in office, no matter how are he tries...
Presidents get paid to make decisions, not to dig ditches by the hour. If a vacation helps clear his mind, so he makes better decisions, then that is a good thing. Eisenhower once cut short a meeting on a proposal to send troops into Vietnam because he had an appointment to play golf. If Lyndon Johnson devoted as much time to golf, then 58,000 American casualties could have been avoided.
The first time he was too extreme - he tried to win the social conservative support by suggesting he would in some way penalise the woman.
What is wrong with that? If you truly believe that abortion is "murder", then why shouldn't the person arranging and paying for the murder be penalized? Social conservatives are being inconsistent in claiming that abortion is murder, but then saying the murderer is also a "victim" so they won't lose too many votes by alienating women.
What Trump's statements really indicate, is that he doesn't really care about the abortion issue, and had spent zero time researching the standard ideological positions staked out by the various extremists.
I can see why he would think that might work
He was asked a question that he was unprepared to answer, so he just made something up on the spot. Don't read too much into that. Since he won the next primary in a landslide, I don't think his statements hurt him much.
Slashdot Mirror
It's also making a comeback due to the startling number of hippie parents who refuse to vaccinate their children
No it isn't. The last known smallpox infection was in Somalia in 1973. Over the last 40 years, the number of cases has been precisely zero. That is not a "comeback".
There are other diseases, including measles and mumps, that have had a resurgence in developed countries, but smallpox is not among them. Which is a good thing. Smallpox is far deadlier than any of those other diseases, and has killed more people than all the wars of history combined. It killed over 300 million people during the 20th century, or about six times as many as WW2.
but it seems to me that trying to put as many Americans as possible out of work ... just isn't sound business strategy
Yes it is. Try reading about the Broken Window Fallacy. It may help you understand why pointless make-work jobs are not "good for the economy".
This is why.
From the first paragraph of that page: Tying is often illegal when the products are not naturally related.
Internet and TV are certainly related, since they are delivered over the same cable. The TV shows are already being sent, so it costs them nothing to turn on the reception at your house. So why should you expect a discount?
Don't want tv? Fine, but it won't lower your bill.
That makes sense. TV has commercials, which generate revenue, so why should you expect to pay less if you don't want it?
Bunch of stuffed shirts, but they got shit done and cooperated with Democrats.
Do you mean when they cooperated, and ran up $18 trillion in debt? Or when they cooperated and launched the dumbest war in history, with bipartisan support? I think I prefer gridlock.
if the police aren't doing anything wrong, why are they trying to hide it?
Because if they drive down the street with a car marked "POLICE LICENSE PLATE SCANNER" and find a car associated with a wanted suspect, then that suspect may be long gone by the time they come back to make an arrest.
set back the effort to eliminae smallpox worldwide.
Minor quibble: Smallpox was eliminated in the 1970s. The CIA operatives were disguised as polio vaccine workers.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries in the world where polio is still endemic. Several dozen polio vaccine workers were killed in the backlash against the CIA ruse. The CIA has admitted that impersonating vaccine workers was a mistake, and said that they will not do it again.
The movie "Zero Dark Thirty" showed CIA operatives pretending to be vaccine workers, but did not mention the backlash.
Amazon has sold more than 3 million echos. I have one, several of my neighbors have them, and so do some of my co-workers. Mostly people seem happy with it, and when they complain about something, it is usually in the context of hoping it will be fixed in the next version, rather than something that will make them stop using it. Since I have bought mine, several features have been fixed or added via free over-the-air software updates.
My friend uses his Echo as an alarm clock. A very expensive alarm clock.
I bought mine a year ago for $149, so it is not that expensive, and it can do way more than just sound an alarm. But there is room for improvement, so I am happy to see Google launching a competing product. Echo gets confused if you ask it a complicated question, and Google should do better at that. It also needs a separate bridge interface for IoT (Zigbee, ZWave, etc.), so a built in hub to control lights, locks, thermostats, motion sensor, and other devices would be nice. I currently have a Samsung SmartThings, but that costs an extra $100, and the link from the Echo to the SmartThings is flakey.
Hyperloop is for people, freight trains are for freight.
Hyperloop is also for freight when speed is more important than cost, which includes any freight currently shipped by aircraft ... which is a lot.
Yet still, the car crashed into the trailer.
Because the owner was incompetent.
And I think we we see more incidents.
Sure, that is expected. But we would see even more incidents if a human was at the wheel.
Better design could avoid it with very little extra manufacturing cost.
Lets say that the extra cost was $20 per vehicle. Tesla has sold over 100,000 cars. So that is $2 Million. To save a single windshield?
Many people react differently to alcohol as well. But you have to draw the line somewhere. If we get the drunks and stoners off the road, is it really a big tragedy if a few semi-sober people are removed as well?
So if one sensor says "body" but another sensor says "plastic bag", you're going to err on the side of it not being a human and just hit it?
The sensors are not specific enough to say "body". The camera will say "falling object, but with a low terminal velocity", radar will say "doesn't reflect much", ultrasound will say "it sounds flexible and hollow", the GPS will say "it is too far from the bridge to be a jumper", and the object recognition software will say "It looks like a plastic bag".
I'd actually be more concerned that the new game for kids will be jumping onto busy roads and laughing as the vehicles all come to a halt.
They will stop laughing when the police show up at their door with the video recorded by the camera in the car.
Or until you run into snow, poor lane markings, etc....
Autopilot works fine in snow. Better than most humans. Tesla specifically recommends that you use Autopilot during snowstorms because it is safer that driving yourself.
Autopilot also handles poor lane markings better than humans, because it can rely on other sensors while humans only have sight. Specifically, Autopilot has data of exactly where in the lane previous Teslas drove on the same road, and will tend to keep you in the center of that.
no amount of smarts, whether human or artificial, will allow a car to avoid hitting, say, a guy who suddenly lands in front of them after jumping off a highway overpass to commit suicide.
Actually, the self-driving car is more likely to avoid an accident in a situation like that because it will react from 700 to 1500 milliseconds faster. At normal highway speed, that means about 100 feet (or 30 meters) of extra braking distance.
Maybe if I could travel an interstate with no interaction, that might qualify.
You can. Tesla autopilot doesn't do intersections, or on-ramps, but once you are on the freeway, you can engage it, and it will self-drive until you reach your exit.
In Teslas with Autopilot, all the hardware is already present for full self-driving, and new features will be added as the software matures.
That's enough for Google to win a lawsuit.
So will Google sue Sue Googe or will Sue Googe sue Google?
Now try to say that outloud five times.
How does Denmark push its electricity to its neighbours Germany, Norway or Sweden, when they are doing the same?
Because the wind doesn't always blow everywhere at once, but it is always blowing somewhere. Wind energy is more reliable when it is geographically dispersed, so one region's peaks can fill another region's troughs.
So they still got that emperor?
Hirohito's son, Akihito is the current emperor of Japan. Their family dynasty dates back to Emperor Jimmu in 660BC, making it, by far, the longest reigning dynasty in history. The main reason for the dynasty's longevity, is that for nearly all of that time, the emperor was just a figurehead with very little actual authority, while the real power was exercised by the Shogun.
Which Germans offered to surrender?
In 1943, Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr (German Intelligence) offered to assassinate Hitler and end the war. Churchill's reply was that the Allies would accept no terms but unconditional surrender. Later in the war, the Nazis executed Canaris for treason.
In July 1944, a coup was launched and an attempt was made to assassinate Hitler. The plan was to kill Hitler, and then immediately negotiate a surrender. The assassination failed, but the coup did not collapse until it was clear that the Allies had refused to negotiate and were unwilling to accept any terms that included soldiers returning home, rather than going to labor camps (where, at least in Russia, most inmates died). From 1944 on, the Allies were fighting for the right to have death camps, and nothing more.
I find it rather interesting that among asians most of these math competitions are Chinese participation, while Koreans, Japanese...have considerably less representation.
It is considerably harder for a Chinese citizen to emigrate to America, compared to South Koreans or Japanese. So the Chinese who work through the process and come here tend to be competitive, hard working, and well educated.
It was American lives or Japanese lives, and the US rightly decided to save American lives.
No it wasn't. The Japanese had already agreed to cease hostilities and surrender. Their only condition was that their emperor not be deposed. America refused, and fought on. After the Japanese surrendered unconditionally, we decided that it was better to let Hirohito keep his job after all.
So the bombing was not at all necessary to "save lives".
Oh, and one other thing: The Germans also offered to surrender in 1943 (when 90% of American casualties had not yet occurred), and again in 1944 (when 75% of American casualties had not yet occurred). Their only condition was that their soldiers be allowed to return peacefully to Germany. We refused, and the war went on.
It is mathematically impossible for Obama to beat Reagan's record for vacation time while in office, no matter how are he tries...
Presidents get paid to make decisions, not to dig ditches by the hour. If a vacation helps clear his mind, so he makes better decisions, then that is a good thing. Eisenhower once cut short a meeting on a proposal to send troops into Vietnam because he had an appointment to play golf. If Lyndon Johnson devoted as much time to golf, then 58,000 American casualties could have been avoided.
The first time he was too extreme - he tried to win the social conservative support by suggesting he would in some way penalise the woman.
What is wrong with that? If you truly believe that abortion is "murder", then why shouldn't the person arranging and paying for the murder be penalized? Social conservatives are being inconsistent in claiming that abortion is murder, but then saying the murderer is also a "victim" so they won't lose too many votes by alienating women.
What Trump's statements really indicate, is that he doesn't really care about the abortion issue, and had spent zero time researching the standard ideological positions staked out by the various extremists.
I can see why he would think that might work
He was asked a question that he was unprepared to answer, so he just made something up on the spot. Don't read too much into that. Since he won the next primary in a landslide, I don't think his statements hurt him much.