Patents have nothing to do with morality or otherwise. Personally I would rather Google have this patent, then say, some patent troll company that will sell the patent to the highest bidder, say, some Chinese state run company.
Also I can't stand how much FUD is said about Gmail and its lack of "privacy". No HUMAN has ever read your email, ever, it doesn't happen. Google uses cold impersonal computers and algorithms to quickly scan text for keywords and then suggests ads that are relevant because they have found that if you are emailing a buddy about a new car, you might be more interested in ads about cars rather than ads about viagra.
Everybody knows the deal with Gmail, and anybody who responds to a Gmail user knows the deal. People do not have to respond to any email they don't want to.
Also to assume that no other online service is scanning your emails is juvenile and naive, and their motives are far more an affront to privacy than simply deciding what ad to display as you enjoy a free service. If you want to be private, get off the fucking web!
After reading a few reports lately over how Nintendo's handhelds are the only remaining growth market for them, they come out with this.
This pretty much kills Nintendo dead.
This is a company too full of arrogance and pride (but the Japanese call it honor and tradition) to even realize they have now completely fucked up everything that was successful.
Nintendo is now the biggest joke in gaming AND electronics. Pulling a Nintendo should mean that you took something that was successful and followed it up with an epic fail and then pat yourself on the back for the accomplishment.
A acceptable synonym could also be "Pulling a Microsoft"
The gaming job is not guaranteed, the electronics one is.
If you are a good friend your ONLY advice is to take the electronics job now and then apply for the games job. Telling him to turn down a promised job and shoot for his dreams will only mean you will probably have your friend sleeping on your couch because he is jobless and broke.
Not sure of many gaming companies that are going to hire someone straight out of college unless he has a pretty damn good portfolio of his own independent gaming projects to showcase. Even if they do hire right away then all he is going to get is a menial junior level Q/A position or such and may not even touch a line of code for years. Probably not going to get 70k doing it either.
Instead he could work on his own side projects and get some real experience programming for another company and then apply as a much more attractive hire in a few years and skip the menial BS.
I mean, if he applies for and gets a real dev position then there is nothing wrong with dropping the electronics job and going for a gaming job, even if the timeline is like 3 months. But I think it will be a lot longer and far less likely to land that dream game job right away.
That happens everywhere my friend. I think the same story can be told in every major city in North America. If a cloud passes over my neighborhood the power goes off proactively, and I live in the capital of Canada! I never bother to set the clock on my microwave anymore because it never says set. I have gotten used to seeing flashing 12:00 everywhere. I wish manufacturers would stop building useless clocks into every kitchen appliances these days. I wish they could invent a power system that wasn't made out of matchsticks and twine.
The problem today is that scientists can't do anything without acceptance from the moral masses. Want to cure cancer, you can, just don't you dare have a cage full of diseased mice in your lab because that is wrong. Want to cure genetic diseases, you can, just don't you dare try to use stem cells because some people consider that abortion. Want to solve world hunger, you can, just don't you dare splice a tomato gene with an eggplant. Want to prove the world is round, you can, just be respectful of those that believe in 2000 years of lies and intolerance to truth.
I agree there are obvious scientific research that is immoral and unacceptable, but the problem now is that if this study is a truthful indication of the state of scientific research today, then science will fail, and with it, our civilization will collapse.
It is a common theory that the Roman Empire fell is because in essence stupid people out grew the ability for the intellects to solve their problems or improve social conditions. I'm afraid the trend is repeating. FUD is the new God.
its not the company "banning" people from sales. I mean, it would be absolutely ridiculous for a company to limit their market share.
I live in Canada and know all too well how frustrating it is that I can't buy something online from some store because the Canadian government will not allow the company into Canada until they can set up all their taxes and tariffs and ensure that Canadian culture is respected and, yada yada yada. Then, of course, the Canadian government has to kneel and pray to the big three national Telecom companies to let them entertain the notion of allowing any kind of potential competition into the country.
Believe me, if B&N or any other company could just sell content freely to anybody in the world they would do so. A market of 7 billion is far more attractive than a market of only 400 million. But I think you will find at the route of all this is your government either making it difficult or impossible for B&N to enter the Brazilian market in a way that makes it profitable for them to do so.
Stop all the talk and just get these things on the road. The sooner the concept fails the sooner we can move on. I also don't want to see a post to ONE car driving safely down the road, I want to see a highway where 40-50% of the cars are autonomous intermingling with some of the dumbest drivers on the planet.
I'd rather strap myself into a coffin and be shot across the country in a big metal straw before I get into an autonomous car driving down the highway with other humans..
Nobody "fixes" their devices anymore so all these teardowns are more like device pornography then serving any real benefit.
Nobody keeps a device for more than a year, and even if they do most people "secretly" want their 2 year old device to break down so they can find an excuse to replace it.
All the BS about repairability is stupid. The reason why these things are sealed these days is so people don't go out an buy 3rd party "enhanced" batteries to usage time that turn the phone or tablet into a bomb.
Also as devices get thinner and thinner, which is a trend consumers are wanting more then repairability, the problem is you can't fit in the mechanics to support a removeable battery. Also a lot of devices are splitting up the battery into multiple sections because they can make better use of voids in the device rather than trying to build a device around a monolithic battery pack.
Lastly, when was the last time you "wore out" your device battery? Except for doing something stupid like leaving a phone in a hot car day after day, most LI-Ion batteries last longer then you desire to hold onto an old phone or tablet.
Because when you use infographics and animations to explain things these days it's much more readily assumed to be a practical solution by the masses and so they will gladly support and fund it. Just look at Hyperloop.
If you had a link to a 2000 page factual whitepaper about the same thing it would be protested and government would cancel it.
Better yet, NASA should put this on Kickstarter and give away T-Shirts and seats to watch the launch of the mission and people will willingly throw millions at the project and cut out the government tax middlemen.
First, solid carbon doesn't just magically turn into CO2, so taking CO2 out of the air, ripping of the carbon and making it into solid forms is probably a better way to sequester it then other techniques. Even if you destroy the building, the bricks are not going to release back all its trapped carbon as CO2. Even if the bricks are in a fire they may not release as much CO2 as wood framed building.
Also sequestering IS a great solution because future generations WILL find ways of doing something better for it. We don't have a solution today so why not capture it and then we have known reserves of CO2 or solid carbon that we can use, say, to turn back into fuel when the technology is available in a generation or two and there are no more oil reserves. All the stuff to make fuel is already in the air.
And where exactly do you think are CO2 came from? The ground, millions of years of carbon being stuffed underground by nature. We have been using hydrocarbons at a rate that nature cannot sequester itself fast enough so humans need to step in and start finding ways to trap CO2, we can't just continue to release it and hope for the best.
But judging from your argument, what is your solution? Its just hopeless and there is nothing to do about it? Or everyone just needs to ride a bike and ignore a century of overuse of hydrocarbons? How do you adapt when 60% of the world's population live AT sea level? What would the logistics be for a city like New York to relocate because of rising sea levels? How about Hong Kong or other countries that don't have the luxury of space to move into.
I have said before Global Warming is a geopolitical nightmare waiting to happen, not so much a natural disaster but one of the greatest threats to human civilization. We organized ourselves into nations with borders and generally as a whole, we are intolerant of foreign populations. Think of the wars and strife that will be caused when entire populations find their land is no longer viable as a place to live and need to exceed those borders to survive. You think everybody is going to hold hands and sing Kumbya and open their doors?
I know, I do tire of the vapid attempts for people to reduce CO2 emissions by doing bullshit stupid things like bike campaigns and driving hybrid and carbon taxes and such, an entire market of green and PROFITABLE solutions have emerged to the guilt ridden middle class. But these "solutions" have no real impact on the environment and are only there to make pretentious hipsters sleep guilt free at night because they have a Tesla charging in the driveway.
As a whole I do think humans and industry need to start being more responsible and realize that a century of abuse of hydrocarbons has created a mess and we need to find ways to pull the excess CO2 out of the air. I don't care how its put their, that is not going to change and will only increase as the planet's population grows, but I do care about finding ways to remove it. Adaption is not a solution, its sticking your head in the sand and ignoring a problem. So stick the carbon in the sand and wait for a day where we can close the cycle and make the fuel and energy we need from the waste of using it in the first place.
I mean this is the only real issue with today's use of hydrocarbons, we have not closed the cycle.
Hydrocarbons about one the best forms of energy we have, which is why it is so popular. Its easy to transport, inexpensive to distribute. Consider the impact battery production has on the environment and the fact they pale in comparison to the amount of energy they can store compared to an equivalent volume of hydrocarbons.
The problem is that we have taking carbon reserves from millions of years of oil and natural gas production and have released it in just over a century.
All the components to make hydrocarbons are in the air, and plants use it through photosynthesis to create what can be turned into biofuel. The problem is I don't see us planting enough crops around the world to offset the release of hydrocarbons we use, and also not enough to remove excess CO2 from the air.
So I would support projects that actually take CO2 out of the air and turn it back into fuel. Imagine a closed cycle where humans reach equilibrium by only releasing as much CO2 as can be trapped back and made back into fuel. No more oil crisis and if done right, no more global warming issues.
I guess bricks or building materials are fine in the short term, but we need energy more than we need building materials.
Yes, clearly from this article using this $35 device on a cheap TV is much better.
But that is the problem with people that have an irrational hate for a company, they choose to use a compromised solution under the guise of moral indignation but are really just cheap so champion the free or cheap alternative vs something that works.
The smart wearable device fad will come and go, like it has in the past. I don't see much point in trying to cram technology into something with a small screen, it just not practical for much more than telling time and wireless communication to a headset. And do I need to start wearing smart glasses to pair with my smartwatch and then wave my hands in the air or talk to myself like a crazy person to get things done.
The Smart Watch and Glasses fad will probably be the most annoying technical meme in the history of mankind. I don't look forward to a bunch of crazed hipster sociopaths wandering the streets aimlessly trying to Tweet and update Facebook using these things. I mean the only difference between these Glass and Watch wearing hipsters and zombies is that zombies are driven by a sense of purpose.
You can happily use Windows 8 without being tied to a windows account. But how is having a windows account different from your iTunes or Google or Yahoo or Facebook or Slashdot, or countless other social services, or how about that fact that any phone and tablet these days are tied to a walled garden and your credit card? A Windows account just sets up 5gb of free skydrive services and an outlook email, both which you never have to use.
I don't love Windows 8 for a lot of reasons, but I mean if you are going to say ignorant things then expect to be called out for it.
Come on, really, office is still one of the most widely used apps in the corporate world. So many people think Microsoft is dead because they didn't catch on to the tablet market right away, but I mean Microsoft's Office division along with their other enterprise products is the reason why the company still exists and still earns billions in a quarter.
I agree Microsoft dropped the ball with consumers, but they are still king in the corporate world. Without Microsoft most corporate IT would be stuck in the stone age with a haphazard collection of products from various companies that don't work well together.
NASA makes things 1000 times more complicated than they need to be. Its why a space toilet seat costs $100k to manufacture and $1 billion to design, but looks like a $10 seat you can get a Home Depot. I had a friend who worked in aerospace that spent a year in R&D for a nut for the Canadarm that he would swear you could just buy at the hardware store.
Agreed that a spacesuit is slightly more complicated than a toilet seat, but private enterprise is showing they are capable to reaching space for far cheaper and less R&D time and costs than NASA has historically demonstrated so I am sure a novel and relatively simpler solution will be found.
Why build something cheap and easy when you have unlimited taxpayer money?
Slashdot Mirror
Patents have nothing to do with morality or otherwise. Personally I would rather Google have this patent, then say, some patent troll company that will sell the patent to the highest bidder, say, some Chinese state run company.
Also I can't stand how much FUD is said about Gmail and its lack of "privacy". No HUMAN has ever read your email, ever, it doesn't happen. Google uses cold impersonal computers and algorithms to quickly scan text for keywords and then suggests ads that are relevant because they have found that if you are emailing a buddy about a new car, you might be more interested in ads about cars rather than ads about viagra.
Everybody knows the deal with Gmail, and anybody who responds to a Gmail user knows the deal. People do not have to respond to any email they don't want to.
Also to assume that no other online service is scanning your emails is juvenile and naive, and their motives are far more an affront to privacy than simply deciding what ad to display as you enjoy a free service. If you want to be private, get off the fucking web!
After reading a few reports lately over how Nintendo's handhelds are the only remaining growth market for them, they come out with this.
This pretty much kills Nintendo dead.
This is a company too full of arrogance and pride (but the Japanese call it honor and tradition) to even realize they have now completely fucked up everything that was successful.
Nintendo is now the biggest joke in gaming AND electronics. Pulling a Nintendo should mean that you took something that was successful and followed it up with an epic fail and then pat yourself on the back for the accomplishment.
A acceptable synonym could also be "Pulling a Microsoft"
The gaming job is not guaranteed, the electronics one is.
If you are a good friend your ONLY advice is to take the electronics job now and then apply for the games job. Telling him to turn down a promised job and shoot for his dreams will only mean you will probably have your friend sleeping on your couch because he is jobless and broke.
Not sure of many gaming companies that are going to hire someone straight out of college unless he has a pretty damn good portfolio of his own independent gaming projects to showcase. Even if they do hire right away then all he is going to get is a menial junior level Q/A position or such and may not even touch a line of code for years. Probably not going to get 70k doing it either.
Instead he could work on his own side projects and get some real experience programming for another company and then apply as a much more attractive hire in a few years and skip the menial BS.
I mean, if he applies for and gets a real dev position then there is nothing wrong with dropping the electronics job and going for a gaming job, even if the timeline is like 3 months. But I think it will be a lot longer and far less likely to land that dream game job right away.
That happens everywhere my friend. I think the same story can be told in every major city in North America. If a cloud passes over my neighborhood the power goes off proactively, and I live in the capital of Canada! I never bother to set the clock on my microwave anymore because it never says set. I have gotten used to seeing flashing 12:00 everywhere. I wish manufacturers would stop building useless clocks into every kitchen appliances these days. I wish they could invent a power system that wasn't made out of matchsticks and twine.
Nissan should rather just plan to sell "cars" by 2020 as I haven't seen a Nissan I have ever wanted to buy.
The problem today is that scientists can't do anything without acceptance from the moral masses. Want to cure cancer, you can, just don't you dare have a cage full of diseased mice in your lab because that is wrong. Want to cure genetic diseases, you can, just don't you dare try to use stem cells because some people consider that abortion. Want to solve world hunger, you can, just don't you dare splice a tomato gene with an eggplant. Want to prove the world is round, you can, just be respectful of those that believe in 2000 years of lies and intolerance to truth.
I agree there are obvious scientific research that is immoral and unacceptable, but the problem now is that if this study is a truthful indication of the state of scientific research today, then science will fail, and with it, our civilization will collapse.
It is a common theory that the Roman Empire fell is because in essence stupid people out grew the ability for the intellects to solve their problems or improve social conditions. I'm afraid the trend is repeating. FUD is the new God.
its not the company "banning" people from sales. I mean, it would be absolutely ridiculous for a company to limit their market share.
I live in Canada and know all too well how frustrating it is that I can't buy something online from some store because the Canadian government will not allow the company into Canada until they can set up all their taxes and tariffs and ensure that Canadian culture is respected and, yada yada yada. Then, of course, the Canadian government has to kneel and pray to the big three national Telecom companies to let them entertain the notion of allowing any kind of potential competition into the country.
Believe me, if B&N or any other company could just sell content freely to anybody in the world they would do so. A market of 7 billion is far more attractive than a market of only 400 million. But I think you will find at the route of all this is your government either making it difficult or impossible for B&N to enter the Brazilian market in a way that makes it profitable for them to do so.
Stop all the talk and just get these things on the road. The sooner the concept fails the sooner we can move on. I also don't want to see a post to ONE car driving safely down the road, I want to see a highway where 40-50% of the cars are autonomous intermingling with some of the dumbest drivers on the planet.
I'd rather strap myself into a coffin and be shot across the country in a big metal straw before I get into an autonomous car driving down the highway with other humans..
So I guess you will never own a phone then, or anything....
Nobody "fixes" their devices anymore so all these teardowns are more like device pornography then serving any real benefit.
Nobody keeps a device for more than a year, and even if they do most people "secretly" want their 2 year old device to break down so they can find an excuse to replace it.
All the BS about repairability is stupid. The reason why these things are sealed these days is so people don't go out an buy 3rd party "enhanced" batteries to usage time that turn the phone or tablet into a bomb.
Also as devices get thinner and thinner, which is a trend consumers are wanting more then repairability, the problem is you can't fit in the mechanics to support a removeable battery. Also a lot of devices are splitting up the battery into multiple sections because they can make better use of voids in the device rather than trying to build a device around a monolithic battery pack.
Lastly, when was the last time you "wore out" your device battery? Except for doing something stupid like leaving a phone in a hot car day after day, most LI-Ion batteries last longer then you desire to hold onto an old phone or tablet.
I mean she is going to do it anyways when you are trying to see the TV to play a game so you might as well turn it into a game.
Because when you use infographics and animations to explain things these days it's much more readily assumed to be a practical solution by the masses and so they will gladly support and fund it. Just look at Hyperloop.
If you had a link to a 2000 page factual whitepaper about the same thing it would be protested and government would cancel it.
Better yet, NASA should put this on Kickstarter and give away T-Shirts and seats to watch the launch of the mission and people will willingly throw millions at the project and cut out the government tax middlemen.
That's an obtuse argument.
First, solid carbon doesn't just magically turn into CO2, so taking CO2 out of the air, ripping of the carbon and making it into solid forms is probably a better way to sequester it then other techniques. Even if you destroy the building, the bricks are not going to release back all its trapped carbon as CO2. Even if the bricks are in a fire they may not release as much CO2 as wood framed building.
Also sequestering IS a great solution because future generations WILL find ways of doing something better for it. We don't have a solution today so why not capture it and then we have known reserves of CO2 or solid carbon that we can use, say, to turn back into fuel when the technology is available in a generation or two and there are no more oil reserves. All the stuff to make fuel is already in the air.
And where exactly do you think are CO2 came from? The ground, millions of years of carbon being stuffed underground by nature. We have been using hydrocarbons at a rate that nature cannot sequester itself fast enough so humans need to step in and start finding ways to trap CO2, we can't just continue to release it and hope for the best.
But judging from your argument, what is your solution? Its just hopeless and there is nothing to do about it? Or everyone just needs to ride a bike and ignore a century of overuse of hydrocarbons? How do you adapt when 60% of the world's population live AT sea level? What would the logistics be for a city like New York to relocate because of rising sea levels? How about Hong Kong or other countries that don't have the luxury of space to move into.
I have said before Global Warming is a geopolitical nightmare waiting to happen, not so much a natural disaster but one of the greatest threats to human civilization. We organized ourselves into nations with borders and generally as a whole, we are intolerant of foreign populations. Think of the wars and strife that will be caused when entire populations find their land is no longer viable as a place to live and need to exceed those borders to survive. You think everybody is going to hold hands and sing Kumbya and open their doors?
I know, I do tire of the vapid attempts for people to reduce CO2 emissions by doing bullshit stupid things like bike campaigns and driving hybrid and carbon taxes and such, an entire market of green and PROFITABLE solutions have emerged to the guilt ridden middle class. But these "solutions" have no real impact on the environment and are only there to make pretentious hipsters sleep guilt free at night because they have a Tesla charging in the driveway.
As a whole I do think humans and industry need to start being more responsible and realize that a century of abuse of hydrocarbons has created a mess and we need to find ways to pull the excess CO2 out of the air. I don't care how its put their, that is not going to change and will only increase as the planet's population grows, but I do care about finding ways to remove it. Adaption is not a solution, its sticking your head in the sand and ignoring a problem. So stick the carbon in the sand and wait for a day where we can close the cycle and make the fuel and energy we need from the waste of using it in the first place.
I mean this is the only real issue with today's use of hydrocarbons, we have not closed the cycle.
Hydrocarbons about one the best forms of energy we have, which is why it is so popular. Its easy to transport, inexpensive to distribute. Consider the impact battery production has on the environment and the fact they pale in comparison to the amount of energy they can store compared to an equivalent volume of hydrocarbons.
The problem is that we have taking carbon reserves from millions of years of oil and natural gas production and have released it in just over a century.
All the components to make hydrocarbons are in the air, and plants use it through photosynthesis to create what can be turned into biofuel. The problem is I don't see us planting enough crops around the world to offset the release of hydrocarbons we use, and also not enough to remove excess CO2 from the air.
So I would support projects that actually take CO2 out of the air and turn it back into fuel. Imagine a closed cycle where humans reach equilibrium by only releasing as much CO2 as can be trapped back and made back into fuel. No more oil crisis and if done right, no more global warming issues.
I guess bricks or building materials are fine in the short term, but we need energy more than we need building materials.
Yes, clearly from this article using this $35 device on a cheap TV is much better.
But that is the problem with people that have an irrational hate for a company, they choose to use a compromised solution under the guise of moral indignation but are really just cheap so champion the free or cheap alternative vs something that works.
I also enjoyed the bit where he singled out that this was an illegal alcoholic drink during Prohibition.
Forgive him, he is a product of modern education. He got 66.7% of the correct letters in the right order and that is clearly a pass these days.
The smart wearable device fad will come and go, like it has in the past. I don't see much point in trying to cram technology into something with a small screen, it just not practical for much more than telling time and wireless communication to a headset. And do I need to start wearing smart glasses to pair with my smartwatch and then wave my hands in the air or talk to myself like a crazy person to get things done.
The Smart Watch and Glasses fad will probably be the most annoying technical meme in the history of mankind. I don't look forward to a bunch of crazed hipster sociopaths wandering the streets aimlessly trying to Tweet and update Facebook using these things. I mean the only difference between these Glass and Watch wearing hipsters and zombies is that zombies are driven by a sense of purpose.
The year Linux takes over the desktop is the year that they will stop selling desktops, which will be next year.
I'll call out FUD whenever I see it.
You can happily use Windows 8 without being tied to a windows account. But how is having a windows account different from your iTunes or Google or Yahoo or Facebook or Slashdot, or countless other social services, or how about that fact that any phone and tablet these days are tied to a walled garden and your credit card? A Windows account just sets up 5gb of free skydrive services and an outlook email, both which you never have to use.
I don't love Windows 8 for a lot of reasons, but I mean if you are going to say ignorant things then expect to be called out for it.
Just finished learning how to use the new Windows 8, now they expect me to learn the old way again? Never. LOL.
Come on, really, office is still one of the most widely used apps in the corporate world. So many people think Microsoft is dead because they didn't catch on to the tablet market right away, but I mean Microsoft's Office division along with their other enterprise products is the reason why the company still exists and still earns billions in a quarter.
I agree Microsoft dropped the ball with consumers, but they are still king in the corporate world. Without Microsoft most corporate IT would be stuck in the stone age with a haphazard collection of products from various companies that don't work well together.
Ain't nobody got time to read stats.
NASA makes things 1000 times more complicated than they need to be. Its why a space toilet seat costs $100k to manufacture and $1 billion to design, but looks like a $10 seat you can get a Home Depot. I had a friend who worked in aerospace that spent a year in R&D for a nut for the Canadarm that he would swear you could just buy at the hardware store.
Agreed that a spacesuit is slightly more complicated than a toilet seat, but private enterprise is showing they are capable to reaching space for far cheaper and less R&D time and costs than NASA has historically demonstrated so I am sure a novel and relatively simpler solution will be found.
Why build something cheap and easy when you have unlimited taxpayer money?
At least the trolling will end...