I found a solution to this problem years ago
on
Reinventing the Axe
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When I was a kid in the 70's, fireplaces were all the rage. When my father finished out the basement he had a Franklin fireplace installed. Of course this meant that one of my chores was splitting wood. And the wood we had was oak, which usually cannot be split with an axe, and requires wedges and a sledgehammer to split. Most of the time I didn't mind the work, but chores are chores and not a lot of fun.
I decided there had to be a better solution to the wood-splitting problem, and when I became an adult and bought my own house I came up with a fantastic solution: I bought a house without a wood fireplace. I haven't split wood in 27 years. Problem solved.
Of course, if some of you Grizzly Adams wannabes like this sort of thing, knock yourselves out. To each his own.:-)
"I wasn't speeding, officer. Someone must have hacked my vehicle. This has happened before. Just yesterday I was late for work because someone hacked my alarm clock. Also the computer forgot my password."
Your system is unenforceable. Or at least about as enforceable as the "10 items or less" lane at the checkout. Or rather, it is enforceable if you want to hire a bunch of jack-booted thugs with arrest authority to keep everyone in line, but that sounds like something outside of the spirit of Burning Man.
Apart from a few technology companies here and there, does anyone really want the "Internet of Things"? I have yet to hear someone say, "Gosh, I wish my washing machine were internet-capable". Yes, I understand that tech firms can come up with all sorts of scenarios where they can try to convince us that this technology will be useful, but what have you really gained with an internet-ready appliance, apart from yet another vehicle for advertisement?
"An estimated 13 to 15 deaths and 1,125 injuries may be prevented with the implementation of this new requirement."
Assuming people will actually use their backup cameras. If they can't be bothered with looking behind them or even using their rear view mirrors now, why should we think they will look at their backup cameras in the future?
What really happened was that Wolowitz and Koothrappali rigged the electric can opener to create false postitive results for Sheldon's test equipment. He shouldn't have announced his findings so soon.
Well, it's not like this is something new. Companies have been able to trademark colors for some time. And it's not like Fluke is some unknown company -- they've been around for a long time and everyone in the industry knows their multimeters are yellow around the edges. I'm skeptical that Sparkfun is completely innocent in all this. A quick look at their website shows that their company colors feature red, which appears to even apply to their circuit boards and tools. One would think their multimeters would be red, not yellow.
And as for forcing them to be destroyed, well that's how customs has always worked. Thirty years ago I had some alcohol brought back from Europe that I failed to declare. The choice was to pay the tax or have it destroyed and pay for the destruction. Either way you're gonna pay.
Having said all of that, there seem to be lots of other things like this that do make it through customs, and one gets the impression that Sparkfun would have had no problem if their bribe had been big enough.
Sadly, this is the kind of thing you usually only see in countries where government officials are corrupt. It is a warning sign of the direction the U.S. government is headed.
I'm perplexed at the motive behind such shennanigans. What is to be gained? Grant money? But surely that's too short-lived to be worth it. Does it just boil down to laziness on the part of someone seeking a PhD?
I guess it's like embezzlement. You have to know, you're going to get caught eventually. There is no escaping it. But people do it anyway.
True, but their world view is mostly about being angry at someone or something. The shows on those channels, and the way stories are presented, are specifically designed to get people angry and upset. The viewers are comfortable in their anger. They embrace it, and look forward to more of it. It's a kind of madness, I think.
I am reminded of the scene from the movie Brazil, where the protagonist is drving this tiny little one-person vehicle on the freeway, surrounded by huge trucks on all sides.
With a dead extinct animal? No. The closest thing is an extinct ibex cloned in 2009 (hardly "a decade"), and it only lived for a few minutes --- not exactly a success in my book.
I didn't mean literally the size of the animal. What I meant is that there is only going to be so much 43,000-year-old DNA to go around. You wouldn't want to waste it on a process that didn't work. You'd want to start out small, with a dead, frozen chicken that had been on ice for a year or so. Extract its DNA, and then see if you could get a live chicken out of it.
I suppose the idea of cloning a 43,000-year-old mammoth would be the kind of thing that would attract funding, but from a purely scientific standpoint, wouldn't you start out small and try to clone, say, a dead chicken first, just to see if the process actually worked?
Anyone who thinks that robots will be smarter than humans by 2029 has not really thought things through. I can step out on my back patio, take one look at the pergola, and tell you that it's going to need to be replaced in the next couple of years. I can look at the grass and tell whether I need to cut it this weekend or let it go for another week. I can sniff the air and tell you that the guy in the next cubicle has farted. Of course a robot might come to the same conclusions, but it would have to take samples from the pergola for testing; measure the grass over a period of several days, test the humidity of the soil, and check the weather forecast; and it could tell that a mildly noxious gas has entered the air from the cubicle next door; but would it know, absolutely KNOW, that the guy in the next cubicle farted?
And will they ever build a robot that can truly understand a woman? Hah!
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When I was a kid in the 70's, fireplaces were all the rage. When my father finished out the basement he had a Franklin fireplace installed. Of course this meant that one of my chores was splitting wood. And the wood we had was oak, which usually cannot be split with an axe, and requires wedges and a sledgehammer to split. Most of the time I didn't mind the work, but chores are chores and not a lot of fun.
I decided there had to be a better solution to the wood-splitting problem, and when I became an adult and bought my own house I came up with a fantastic solution: I bought a house without a wood fireplace. I haven't split wood in 27 years. Problem solved.
Of course, if some of you Grizzly Adams wannabes like this sort of thing, knock yourselves out. To each his own. :-)
"I wasn't speeding, officer. Someone must have hacked my vehicle. This has happened before. Just yesterday I was late for work because someone hacked my alarm clock. Also the computer forgot my password."
Your system is unenforceable. Or at least about as enforceable as the "10 items or less" lane at the checkout. Or rather, it is enforceable if you want to hire a bunch of jack-booted thugs with arrest authority to keep everyone in line, but that sounds like something outside of the spirit of Burning Man.
Impossible? Hmmm, I don't know about that. Chin Ho Kelly on Hawaii Five-0 can crack any password within a couple of minutes. I seen it.
Apart from a few technology companies here and there, does anyone really want the "Internet of Things"? I have yet to hear someone say, "Gosh, I wish my washing machine were internet-capable". Yes, I understand that tech firms can come up with all sorts of scenarios where they can try to convince us that this technology will be useful, but what have you really gained with an internet-ready appliance, apart from yet another vehicle for advertisement?
"An estimated 13 to 15 deaths and 1,125 injuries may be prevented with the implementation of this new requirement."
Assuming people will actually use their backup cameras. If they can't be bothered with looking behind them or even using their rear view mirrors now, why should we think they will look at their backup cameras in the future?
I have read it, but when I compare it to how the real world works I see no correlation.
Actually, I thought everything in our court system boiled down to "who has the best lawyer".
What really happened was that Wolowitz and Koothrappali rigged the electric can opener to create false postitive results for Sheldon's test equipment. He shouldn't have announced his findings so soon.
"Coronal mass ejections, with in 2012, according to researchers."
My hovercraft is full of eels.
If all they are collecting are email addresses and phone numbers, why do they need such a ginormous new data center in Utah?
Moot questions. I wasn't talking about the plagiarism. I was talking about publishing results that cannot be duplicated.
Well, it's not like this is something new. Companies have been able to trademark colors for some time. And it's not like Fluke is some unknown company -- they've been around for a long time and everyone in the industry knows their multimeters are yellow around the edges. I'm skeptical that Sparkfun is completely innocent in all this. A quick look at their website shows that their company colors feature red, which appears to even apply to their circuit boards and tools. One would think their multimeters would be red, not yellow.
And as for forcing them to be destroyed, well that's how customs has always worked. Thirty years ago I had some alcohol brought back from Europe that I failed to declare. The choice was to pay the tax or have it destroyed and pay for the destruction. Either way you're gonna pay.
Having said all of that, there seem to be lots of other things like this that do make it through customs, and one gets the impression that Sparkfun would have had no problem if their bribe had been big enough.
Sadly, this is the kind of thing you usually only see in countries where government officials are corrupt. It is a warning sign of the direction the U.S. government is headed.
I'm perplexed at the motive behind such shennanigans. What is to be gained? Grant money? But surely that's too short-lived to be worth it. Does it just boil down to laziness on the part of someone seeking a PhD?
I guess it's like embezzlement. You have to know, you're going to get caught eventually. There is no escaping it. But people do it anyway.
True, but their world view is mostly about being angry at someone or something. The shows on those channels, and the way stories are presented, are specifically designed to get people angry and upset. The viewers are comfortable in their anger. They embrace it, and look forward to more of it. It's a kind of madness, I think.
Fox News would go out of business.
A solution in search of a problem. With driverless cars on the verge of being a reality, road rage will become a thing of the past.
I am reminded of the scene from the movie Brazil, where the protagonist is drving this tiny little one-person vehicle on the freeway, surrounded by huge trucks on all sides.
With a dead extinct animal? No. The closest thing is an extinct ibex cloned in 2009 (hardly "a decade"), and it only lived for a few minutes --- not exactly a success in my book.
I didn't mean literally the size of the animal. What I meant is that there is only going to be so much 43,000-year-old DNA to go around. You wouldn't want to waste it on a process that didn't work. You'd want to start out small, with a dead, frozen chicken that had been on ice for a year or so. Extract its DNA, and then see if you could get a live chicken out of it.
I know they have cloned live sheep. Has anyone cloned a frozen, dead animal yet? That I haven't heard about.
I suppose the idea of cloning a 43,000-year-old mammoth would be the kind of thing that would attract funding, but from a purely scientific standpoint, wouldn't you start out small and try to clone, say, a dead chicken first, just to see if the process actually worked?
I didn't know dire wolves were real. I just thought it was some BS that George R. R. Martin came up with.
Anyone who thinks that robots will be smarter than humans by 2029 has not really thought things through. I can step out on my back patio, take one look at the pergola, and tell you that it's going to need to be replaced in the next couple of years. I can look at the grass and tell whether I need to cut it this weekend or let it go for another week. I can sniff the air and tell you that the guy in the next cubicle has farted. Of course a robot might come to the same conclusions, but it would have to take samples from the pergola for testing; measure the grass over a period of several days, test the humidity of the soil, and check the weather forecast; and it could tell that a mildly noxious gas has entered the air from the cubicle next door; but would it know, absolutely KNOW, that the guy in the next cubicle farted?
And will they ever build a robot that can truly understand a woman? Hah!